urn 


HOLLAND 
GALLERIES 

MICHIGAN  AVE. 
CHICAGO 


Ulrich  Middeldorf 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/arttalkswithrangOOrang 


Henry  W.  Ranger,  N.  A 

1858-1916 


Henry  W.  Ranger  has  covered  a  wide  range  of  subject  matter  and  technic  in  Art,  and  he  is 
a  militant  force  in  the  intellectual  Art  movement  in  America.    The  Tonal  School,  of  which 
he  was  the  head,  marks  an  epoch  in  American  Art  similar  to  that  of  the 
Barbizon  period  in  French  Art 


AWARDS 

Bronze  Medal,  Paris  Exposition   1900 

Silver  Medal,  Pan-American  Exposition,  Buffalo    .    .  1 90 1 

Gold  Medal,  Charlestown  Exposition   1902 

Gold  Metal,  A.  AS   1907 


WORKS  IN  ART  GALLERIES  AND  MUSEUMS 

Metropolitan  Museum 

"High  Bridge" 
"Spring  Woods" 

Corcoran  Gallery 

"Top  of  the  Hill" 

Carnegie  Institute 

"East  River  Idyl" 

Toledo  Museum 

"Landscape" 

Fine  Arts  Academy,  Buffalo 

"Group  of  Oaks" 

National  Gallery,  Washington,  D.  C. 

"Entrance  to  the  Harbor" 
"Connecticut  Woods" 

"The  Cornfield" 
"Bradbury  Mill  Pond" 
"Groton  Long  Point  Dunes" 

Penn.  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  Phila. 

"Sheep  Pasture" 

Brooklyn  Institute  Museum 

"Spring  Woods" 


HENRY  WARD  RANGER,  N.  A. 

1858  -  1916 


Other  Books  by  Dr.  Bell 


Poems.   2  Vols. 

Words  of  the  Wood 

The  Religion  of  Beauty 

The  Worth  of  Words 

The  Changing  Values  of  English  Speech 

Taormina 


Art-Talks  with  Ran 


By 

Ralcy  Husted  Bell 


G.  P.  Putnam^s  Sons 
New  York  and  London 
^be    Iknfcfterbocfter  press 
1914 


Copyright,  1914 

BY 

RALCY  HUSTED  BELL 


Ube  Ikniclierboclier  ipress,  mew  l^orft 


(To 

THE  AMERICAN  TONALISTS 

LIVING  AND  DEAD 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALRS 
WITH  RANGER 


ENRY  WARD  RANGER,  for  more 
than  forty  years,  has  been  the 
militant  leader  of  a  group  of 
painters  known  as  ''Tonalists." 
For  a  long  time,  he  has  been  re- 
garded by  many  of  his  colleagues  as  the  **Dean" 
of  American  landscape  painters. 

His  rich  experience  and  close  analytical  studies 
have  given  much  authoritative  weight  to  his  ut- 
terances; but,  for  the  most  part,  these  have  been 
confined  to  ''table-talks"  and  discussions  in  art- 
circles. 

Again  and  again,  he  has  been  asked  to  publish  his 
views  on  painting,  thus  giving  permanency  to 
matters  of  diversified  interest  to  the  craft;  but  he 
always  pleaded  for  "a  more  propitious  moment." 

Ordinarily,  Mr.  Ranger  is  not  at  all  reticent; 
but  when  it  comes  to  talking  for  publication,  he 
has  been  singularly  conservative.  As  he  says: 
*'A  painter  should  be  known  by  his  work  rather 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALKS 


than  by  his  words."  This  has  been  his  fixed 
attitude  of  mind.  Among  artists  and  connois- 
seurs, however,  a  growing  interest  developed  in 
his  opinions;  and  this  ripened  into  a  demand, 
more  or  less  insistent,  for  an  expression  from  him 
on  the  problems  of  art. 

As  one  among  many,  I  urged  him  repeatedly  to 
put  his  fund  of  information  into  definite  form  that 
should  be  accessible  to  those  interested.  It  seemed 
to  me  to  be  justified  by  the  facts;  and  I  fancied 
that  it  might  be  both  helpful  to  some  in  his  pro- 
fession and  entertaining  to  others,  both  in  and  out. 
In  less  than  a  six-months*  quest,  or  such  a  matter, 
I  persuaded  him  that  none  is  so  fit  to  speak  of  the 
sea  as  the  sailor. 

At  this  point,  I  discovered  that  my  difficulties 
had  only  begun.  For  although  he  works  only  in 
the  open  field  of  his  profession — never  behind 
barred  doors — and  was  ever  ready  to  give  to  any 
one  capable  of  using  it  all  the  information  he  had, 
yet  he  seemed  to  shrink  from  the  getting  down 
to  tacks,"  as  he  said.  He  was  a  very  busy  man 
by  day";  and  I  found  him  to  be  a  very  much 
engaged  man  by  night;  or  else  he  was  "too  tired 
to  talk  this  evening." 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALKS 


vii 


When  I  was  about  to  abandon  the  effort,  he 
reluctantly  made  something  more  than  vague 
promises.  It  was  then  agreed  that  we  should 
devote  one  night  a  week  to  the  "talks";  and  for 
the  major  part,  the  subject  was  to  be  of  his  own 
choosing,  and  governed  by  mood.  That  is  to  say, 
if  Mr.  Ranger  felt  like  spinning  reminiscences,  I 
should  not  try  to  hold  him  down  to  questions  of 
technic,  or  of  anything  else  for  that  matter,  re- 
gardless of  such  literary  proprieties  as  continuity 
of  arrangement  or  unity  of  scheme.  In  a  word, 
he  was  to  be  as  free  to  roam  at  will  as  a  wild  horse 
of  the  prairies.  I  saw  that  he  could  not  endure 
harness,  and  that  he  was  too  old  a  colt  to  break. 
This  will  account  for  the  capricious  freedom  of  his 
discourses. 

We  had  an  understanding  to  the  effect  that  I  was 
to  make  use  of  his  material  for  publication,  pro- 
vided only  that  I  set  forth  the  facts  clearly  as  they 
were.  This,  he  thought,  should  preclude  any  in- 
ference by  anybody  that  he  was  trying  to  convert 
other  artists  to  a  belief  in  his  method  of  painting 
to  the  disparagement  of  their  own.  For,  indeed, 
he  is  no  dogmatic  exponent  of  creed  in  art  or  else- 
where.   He  is  not  setting  himself  up  as  an  in- 


viii 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALKS 


fallible  pope  of  painting.  He  speaks  merely  as  a 
Tonalist,  being  thoroughly  alive  to  the  fact  that 
there  are  as  many  different  kinds  of  painting  as  of 
writing;  and  he  fancies  that  there  is  no  perfect 
method  extant,  but  that  all  methods,  or  nearly 
all,  serve  as  stepping-stones  to  higher  and  better 
things  in  the  aspirations  of  art. 

Naturally,  the  value  of  his  views  rests  upon  the 
authority  of  his  knowledge.  It  is  current  in  pro- 
fessional gossip  that  he  is  a  profound  technician; 
and  I  have  heard  it  said  that  his  range,  specifically 
and  in  general,  covers  a  field  as  broad  as  that  of 
any  other  living  painter.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the 
future  alone  can  justify  or  invalidate  the  enthusi- 
asm of  his  contemporary  admirers  for  both  his 
work  and  opinions. 

Agreeable  to  our  understanding,  not  only  was 
I  prompt  in  the  appointments,  but  worked  over- 
time as  much  as  possible.  On  one  such  occasion, 
I  remember,  Mr.  Ranger  stopped  abruptly  in  the 
midst  of  a  "talk"  with  the  exclamation:  "There, 
I  can't  say  another  word !  I  feel  like  an  empty 
barrel." 

Early  in  these  associations  together,  he  re- 
marked to  me  that  any  expression  of  my  personal 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALKS 


IX 


liking  for  his  pictures,  in  a  book  containing  his 
"talks,"  might  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  he 
purred  under  praise;  and  that  he  wished  to  avoid 
the  embarrassment  of  being  placed  in  a  false  posi- 
tion. He  also  intimated  rather  plainly  that  while 
he  would  willingly  shoulder  the  responsibility  for 
every  word  he  uttered — and  should  be  ready  at 
all  times  to  defend  his  position — he  was  not  willing 
to  be  responsible  for  anything  else.  This  is  a  very 
good  index  to  the  man's  character. 

It  is  only  just  to  Mr.  Ranger  that  these  facts 
should  be  known.  So  far  as  I  personally  am 
concerned,  I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  his  atti- 
tude. For  I  am  no  more  eager  to  assume  the 
burden  of  all  his  views  than  he  may  be  to  act  as 
sponsor  to  some  of  mine.  And  so  I  have  been 
pleased  to  set  down  his  views  and  reminiscences 
faithfully  and  carefully.  I  thought  it  better  to  do 
this  during  his  lifetime  than  to  try  to  do  it  after 
his  death.  What  would  we  not  give  now  for  some 
such  authentic  "talks"  by  men  who  have  done 
their  work  well,  and  silently  passed  away ! 

In  addition,  I  have  observed  Mr.  Ranger  closely, 
studied  his  pictures  in  the  making,  and  plied  him 
with  questions.    The  result  is  that  I  have  accu- 


THE  GENESIS  OF  ART-TALKS 


mulated  instructive  data  and  other  interesting 
material,  which,  being  inappropriate  to  this  book, 
will  be  used  in  another.  This,  then,  is  the  genesis 
of  Art-Talks  With  Ranger. 

As  I  look  over  Mr.  Ranger's  matter  again  for 
the  last  time  before  going  to  press,  I  feel  sure  that 
his  experience,  deductions,  and  reminiscences  will 
make  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  literature  of 
Art.  That  they  are  fraught  with  much  con- 
temporary interest,  there  is  no  question.  His 
views  are  modest  and  of  a  generous  spirit;  now 
and  then  they  are  poetic  or  philosophic — always 
wholesome  and  sane. 

R.  H.  B. 

New  York,  May,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The  Genesis  of  Art-Talks  with  Ranger  .  iii 

TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS      ....  I 

A  Theory  of  Painting       .       .       .  .13 

First  Talk.   Schools,  &c   28 

Second  Talk.   Technics    ....  38 

Third  Talk.    Methods  and  Instances      .  51 

Fourth  Talk.    General  Remarks     .       .  58 

Fifth  Talk.   The  Wisdom  of  Copying  as  a 

Means  of  Education   ....  63 

Sixth  Talk.    Painting      ....  72 

Seventh   Talk.     New    Factors   in  the 

Development  of  Landscape  Painting  83 

Eighth  Talk.    Helps  and  Hindrances      .  91 

Ninth  Talk.    Retrospection     ...  98 

Tenth  Talk.    Personal  Methods     .       .  105 

Eleventh  Talk.    Restoration  of  Pictures  118 

xi 


xii 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Twelfth  Talk.   Tonality         .       .  .129 

Thirteenth  Talk.    Past  and  Present      .  141 

Fourteenth   Talk.    Some  Questions  and 

Answers      ......  151 

Fifteenth  Talk.    Questions  and  Answers 

— Continued         .       .       .       .  .167 


Art-Talks  with  Ranger 


TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS 


SOUND  method  is  the  basis  of  sane 
workmanship;  this  is  one  of  the 
secrets  of  the  Tonalist's  success. 
There  are  many  others  which  may  be 
read,  by  any  one  who  chances  to  be  famiHar  with 
the  language  of  painting.  One  of  these  secrets  is 
honest  industry;  another  is  logical  effort  which 
is  naturally  followed  by  congruity  of  effect.  The 
resulting  pictures  are  as  noteworthy  for  their  con- 
sistency as  for  their  beauty — terms  which  in  a 
sense  are  interchangeable. 

A  regard  for  unity  and  sanity  of  arrangement  is, 
of  course,  not  inherent  in  any  method ;  but  it  finds 
expression  rather  through  what  has  been  aptly 
called  the  personal  equation.  The  same  personal 
equation  that  expresses  itself  sanely  is  very  likely 
to  make  use  of  the  most  efficient  means.  This  is 
the  principal  reason,  I  believe,  why  the  true 
Tonalist  is  not  easily  diverted  by  quirks  of  technic. 
His  fidelity  to  common -sense  will  not  be  shaken  by 
passing  fads.    One  may  look  in  vain  over  his 

I 


2  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


representative  canvases  for  signs  of  emotional 
conflict  or  lack  of  judicial  poise;  in  a  word,  for 
jumbled  elements.  The  tranquil  and  the  impetu- 
ous, the  sober  and  the  gay,  are  all  there,  and  each 
will  be  found  in  its  own  place. 

The  skilful  artist — the  first-rate  craftsman — 
leaves  none  of  his  effects  to  the  caprice  of  chance. 
He  can  drive  the  technical  and  the  theoretical 
steeds  of  his  car  side  by  side,  as  it  were,  or  in 
tandem,  without  entangling  them  in  the  traces  of 
his  art.  Many  a  man,  not  without  cleverness,  has 
been  imdone  in  attempting  this  feat.  The  cause 
of  disaster  can  usually  be  traced  to  lack  of  taste  or 
a  faulty  knowledge  of  the  principles  involved. 

The  painter's  keen  eye  for  beauty  should  not 
have  an  exaggerated  ''blind  spot"  for  the  personal 
imperfections  which  mar  the  development  of  an 
impersonal  art.  Whether  the  essential  character- 
istics of  a  painter  are  a  birth-gift,  or  whether,  as 
Reynolds  says,  "Excellence  is  never  granted  to 
man,  but  as  the  reward  of  labour,"  is  of  no  im- 
portance so  long  as  his  work  reveals  the  qualities 
required  by  art. 

All  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  finest  ex- 
amples of  the  Tonal  School  must  be  impressed 


TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS 


with  their  sensuous  swing  and  play  of  colour, 
which  are  wedded  to  such  delightful  designs  and 
pleasing  patterns  that  they  neither  seem  like 
designs  nor  yet  suggest  patterns.  So  agreeably 
are  all  the  parts  connected,  that  they  are  seen  only 
together:  fused  in  a  nice  relation  to  the  whole. 
Thus  is  the  appearance  of  labour  dispelled  from 
the  picture,  not  by  the  clumsy  means  of  obscura- 
tion, but  by  the  deft  methods  of  harmony,  so 
cunningly  wrought  that  the  production  is  as  free 
from  the  moans  of  labour,  as  the  gently  swaying 
boughs  of  a  tree  or  the  happy  waters  of  a  lazy 
brook.  Only  through  such  freedom  from  petty 
artifice — such  dignity  of  poise  and  healthy  tem- 
perament— may  Nature's  lyric  beauty  be  caught 
and  imprisoned  in  thin  layers  of  colour. 

The  pictures  which  have  survived  the  ceaseless 
"revolutions"  in  art,  and  have  held  their  own 
under  the  merciless  scrutiny  and  severe  appraisals 
of  time,  are,  almost  to  a  canvas,  those  which  in 
varying  degree  meet  the  requirements  of  the  Tonal 
method  of  painting.  These  noble  specimens  dis- 
close a  mastery  of  the  relations  which  assemble 
and  unify  all  the  components  of  a  picttire  into  a 
single  broad  harmony.  Thus  the  masters,  working 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


independently  from  Nature,  were  able  to  produce 
pictiires  which  bear  none  of  the  marks  of  uncer- 
tainty so  common  to  the  work  of  men  of  less  keen 
observation  and  of  less  sound  knowledge. 

It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  judgment  of  the 
masters,  ancient  and  modern,  had  the  solid  foun- 
dation of  a  clear  analytical  mentality,  and  that  it 
was  supported  by  long  and  patient  industry.  It  is 
evident  from  their  work,  that  these  men  so  trained 
the  visual  memory  that  it  could  be  trusted  to  give 
reign  to  the  imagination,  without  fear  of  a  run- 
away or  the  danger  of  collision  with  fact.  For  the 
powers  of  perception  must  be  disciplined  to  the 
point  where  enthusiasm  can  play  no  pranks  with 
the  realism  of  things  worth  while  in  art.  Briefly, 
all  the  strong  Tonalists  of  whom  we  have  know- 
ledge were  so  efficient  in  what  Sir  Joshua  says  "is 
properly  called  the  Language  of  Art,"  that  the 
subtleties  of  aesthetic  expression  and  the  finer 
shades  of  sensuous  meaning  were  effective  tools 
in  their  grasp.  Learning  first  the  use  of  these, 
they  found  no  difficulty  in  liberating  the  poetic 
energy  which  has  recorded  itself  on  their  remark- 
able canvases. 

The  Tonalist  understands  the  basic  principles 


TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS 


of  his  art,  principles  of  which  the  often  popular 
and  always  ephemeral  faddists  are  childishly  igno- 
rant. He  seems  to  know  that  the  coloured  body- 
light  of  a  painting  slightly  broken  by  the  colourless 
surface-light  produces  an  effect  which  is  more 
pleasing  to  the  eye  than  either  body-light  or 
surface-light  broken  merely  by  its  own  diversity 
or  varying  intensity.  This  effect  he  achieves  by 
texture^  to  which  there  is  no  short  cut;  but  when 
once  mastered,  it  handsomely  rewards  the  work- 
man for  the  labour  patiently  spent  in  its  cause. 
It  endows  his  canvas  lavishly  with  all  sorts  of 
riches:  in  one  place  there  dreams  the  suggestion 
of  a  velvet  emerald,  in  another  that  of  a  pigeon- 
blood  ruby,  and  somewhere  between  the  two 
nestles  the  mellowed  translucency  of  mutton-fat 
jade;  in  seeming  abandon  the  souls  of  happy 
jewels  are  scattered  with  such  consummate  skill 
that  it  is  hard  sometimes  to  believe  that  they  are 
made  of  paint. 

The  Tonalist  must  be  clever  enough  to  learn 
early  in  his  career  that  a  scientific  process  is  ne- 
cessary to  the  best  and  most  durable  effects  in  art. 
The  process,  it  is  true,  may  be  acquired  by  accident 
or  through  study;  and  the  method  may  combine 


6  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


empiricism  with  feeling,  or  the  mechanical  applica- 
tion in  the  work  may  be  wholly  unconscious  of 
the  scientific  principles  involved;  and,  if  the  laws 
be  not  broken,  their  judgment  will  be  as  benign  as 
a  cloudless  summer  day. 

The  most  satisfactory  results  in  painting,  how- 
ever, are  those  most  uniformly  reliable,  because 
capable  of  being  foreseen ;  and  these  depend  upon 
the  scientific  accuracy  of  knowledge  governing  the 
divers  stages  of  the  work.  Many  artists  affect 
to  believe,  and  others,  sincere  in  their  ignorance, 
contend  that  scientific  knowledge  interferes  with 
the  artistic  spontaneity  shown  in  the  result.  In 
the  light  of  the  few  things  we  know,  if  we  know 
anything,  the  belief  is  unfounded  in  fact,  as  has 
been  proved  repeatedly  in  the  experiences  of  well- 
known  painters;  and  the  contention  falls  to  the 
ground  for  the  lack  of  reasonable  support.  Surely, 
the  art  of  painting  involves  such  a  narrow  range 
and  application  of  scientific  principles  that  a 
working  knowledge  of  them  is  not  likely  to  in- 
terfere either  with  feeling  or  "inspiration.*'  A 
scientific  technic  ought  to  be  more  easily  acquired 
than  one  evolved  from  blind  groping,  and,  as  it 
can  be  converted  as  quickly  as  any  other  into 


TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS 


"second  nature,"  there  can  be  no  valid  objection 
to  it. 

It  is  readily  demonstrable  that  the  Tonalist's 
method  of  using  glazes  accounts  for  much  of  the 
colour-charm  of  the  tone-picture.  For  example, 
when  he  overlays  an  opaque  colour  with  a  thin 
stratum,  semi-transparent  and  suitably  tinted,  he 
makes  use  of  one  of  the  rich  properties  of  stained 
glass.  The  light  from  without  must  pass  twice 
through  the  tinted  plate,  and  as  it  issues,  by  re- 
flection, a  discordant  part  of  the  white  light  is 
neutralised.  That  is  to  say,  the  glaze  destroys  a 
part  of  the  white  light  by  converting  some  rays 
into  heat,  while  those  rays  which  remain  uncon- 
verted into  heat  emerge  as  coloured,  and  are  truly 
sanctified  in  their  purity,  adding  a  tone  of  beauty 
impossible  to  any  other  known  process. 

In  this  method  two  colours  must  be  married, 
and  considered  together.  The  phenomenon  in  its 
practical  relations  must  be  apprehended,  since  a 
part  of  one  colour  is  changed  into  heat,  and  there- 
fore lost  as  a  colour-value,  while  the  part  which  is 
conserved  in  its  purity  becomes  intensified  in 
effect.  Certain  problems  of  contrast  aside,  the 
two  colours  usually  studied  in  their  mutual  rela- 


8  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


tions  in  this  respect  are  called  complementary. 
Thus  if  green  is  destroyed,  the  red  remains  purer, 
and  vice  versa.'  The  same  phenomenon  is  ob- 
served with  such  couples  as  blue  and  golden 
3^ellow,  green-yellow  and  violet,  red  and  blue- 
green,  scarlet  red  and  greenish  cyan,  sap  green  and 
purple  magenta,  orange  red  and  bluish  cyan,  and 
so  on  with  a  great  number  of  others.  Hence,  since 
any  part  of  the  total,  resulting  in  white  light,  may 
be  removed  and  its  complementary  colour  left,  a 
means  lies  within  reach  of  any  painter  whereby 
he  can  purify,  intensify,  and  give  "tone"  to  his 
colours  that  no  other  method  permits.  Thus, 
there  is  possible  with  this  technic,  the  illusion  of 
depth  and  luminosity  which  is  relatively  impossible 
with  others. 

Of  course,  there  is  no  hard  and  sharp  line 
separating  the  sheep  from  the  goats.  There  are 
strong  men  whose  work,  if  not  strictly  Tonal,  still 
contains  some  Tonal  qualities — just  as  there  are 
Tonalists  who  stray  beyond  the  technical  limits 
of  the  purely  scientific  principles  of  their  method. 
It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  he  who  violates 
the  laws  of  his  art  does  so  at  an  inevitable  loss 

*  Letters  to  a  Painter,  Ostwald. 


TON  A  LI  SM  AND  TON  A  LISTS 


to  the  excellence  of  his  work.  This  retribution, 
unlike  the  judgments  administered  by  man,  is 
meted  out  in  the  exact  degree  of  his  transgression, 
and  is,  therefore,  always  just. 

There  are  many  painters  who  decry  academic 
methods  and  instruction;  but  when  their  objec- 
tions are  sifted,  it  appears  that  the  academy 
teaches  nothing  and  has  nothing  to  teach  that  can 
possibly  harm  any  student  with  individuality  and 
the  mentality  which  is  capable  of  appropriating 
nurture.  Temperament,  intuition,  and  feeling  are 
useful  and  very  practical  mental  assets  in  art ;  but 
scientific  knowledge,  I  repeat,  is  indispensable  to 
the  highest  achievements  in  the  possibilities  of  art. 
As  a  rule,  academic  training  only  hurts  those  who 
have  been  incurably  hurt  previously  in  the  in- 
scrutable machinations  of  Fate — that  is  to  say, 
those  who  lack  some  of  the  essentials  of  a  true 
artist. 

Better  than  the  votaries  of  any  other  school 
known  to  me,  the  Tonalist  catches  the  laughter  of 
shimmering  light,  and  transmutes  it  into  pictorial 
joy;  he  speaks  admirably  the  old  mother-tongue 
of  cloud,  tree,  pool,  and  stone;  he  interprets  the 
spring;  he  is  summer's  scribe,  page  to  the  majesty 


10  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


of  autumn,  and  priest  to  the  whole  round  year. 
With  a  simple  palette,  and  as  if  by  magic,  he 
expresses  breadth,  teasing  transparency,  mysteri- 
ous distances,  the  illusion  of  luminosity — in  a 
word,  the  drama  of  air,  light,  and  colour.  Taken 
all  in  all,  his  pictures  challenge,  please,  and  con- 
vince. As  a  last  refinement,  he  permeates  them 
with  his  own  individuality,  and  thus  may  he  be 
called  a  creator. 

The  Tonal  landscapist  of  to-day  does  not  belong 
to  the  class  of  modern  painters  who  have  to  sit 
down  and  wait  for  inspiration  to  come  tapping  at 
the  door;  he  is  always  inspired  with  that  sure 
attribute  of  genius  which  is  a  combination  of  in- 
dustry, imagination,  and  judgment.  And  through 
all  his  works  are  woven  the  elements  of  a  sane 
courage,  a  subdued  splendotir,  and  a  veiled  glory 
which  vibrate  with  the  sincerity  and  freedom  of  air 
and  light. 

Some  of  his  pictures  are  lyric  raptures  which 
arise  wholly  from  present  joy  in  the  contemplation 
of  natural  beauty.  His  dramatic  landscapes 
arouse  an  emotional  intensity  fed  by  the  tragic 
associations  of  human  experience;  and  there  are 
others  which  thrill,  as  it  were,  with  the  epic  faith 


TONALISM  AND  TONALISTS  ii 


of  man  in  his  own  splendid  destiny.  In  the 
aspect  of  some  may  be  found  heroism,  toil,  and 
suffering;  again  there  appears  a  grim  triumph 
amounting  almost  to  savage  joy;  and  in  still 
others  there  is  something  which  arouses  the  su- 
preme rapture  as  it  corresponds  to  life's  aspira- 
tions just  before  their  inevitable,  periodic  recoil 
— which  in  art  is  one  phase  of  rhythm. 

Naturally,  there  is  no  rigid  division  between 
these  different  aspects  of  the  Tonalist*s  art  as 
revealed  in  the  diverse  emotions  aroused  by  his 
pictures.  The  unity  is  so  perfect  that  one  glides 
into  another  as  insensibly  as  morning  into  noon, 
and  finds  itself,  or  differentiates  itself  from  the 
others,  only  through  emphasis,  or  rather,  let  me 
say,  in  the  aesthetic  personality  of  the  beholder. 
For  not  unlike  Shakespeare,  this  modern  technical 
and  spiritual  brother  of  the  old  masters  gives  unto 
each  according  as  each  one  hath  soul  with  which 
to  receive. 

R.  H.  B. 

Note. — Among  the  names  of  American  painters  whose  work, 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  conforms  to  the  methods,  traditions, 
and  ideals  of  the  Tonal  School,  are  the  following:  William  H. 
Hunt,  George  Fuller,  George  Inness,  A.  H.  Wyant,  Homer  D. 
Martin,  Winslow  Homer,  Robert  C.  Minor,  R.  A.  Blakelock,  A. 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


P.  Ryder,  Abbott  Thayer,  George  De  Forest  Brush,  J.  Francis 
Murphy,  W.  Gedney  Bunce,  Thomas  Dewing,  D.  W,  Tryon, 
Horatio  Walker,  Edmund  Tarbell,  A.  B.  Davies,  H.  W,  Ranger, 
Charles  H.  Davis,  J.  Alden  Weir,  J.  H.  Twachtman,  E.  Dainger- 
field,  F.  Ballard  Williams,  Charles  H.  Hawthorne,  Emil  Carlson, 
L.  P.  Dessar,  and  a  few  others. 


A  THEORY  or  PAINTING 


IFE  is  a  phenomenon  and  Art  is  one 
of  its  corollaries.  As  is  notably 
true  of  Time  and  Poetry,  neither 
Art  nor  Life  has  ever  been  satis- 
factorily defined.  Both  are  so  obvious,  however, 
that  a  definition  is  unnecessary.  The  relation- 
ship that  exists  between  them  is  commonly 
acknowledged,  but  not  clearly  perceived. 

There  is  a  general  agreement  in  the  belief  that 
the  phenomena  of  Life  are  incidental  to  planetary 
change;  and  that  Art  is  incidental  to  certain  evo- 
lutionary phases  of  these  phenomena.  Perhaps 
if  Art  and  Life  are  considered  with  relation  to  each 
other,  our  conceptions  will  broaden  and  our  per- 
ception of  them  become  clearer  even  without  the 
aid  of  definitions. 

It  is  possible  that  Art  may  be  traced  through 
its  changing  phases  as  far  back  as  the  flux  of  Life 
itself  may  be  followed.  Indeed,  some  of  our  most 
modern  art  exhibits  a  hairy  kinship  with  pre- 
arboreal  existence.    But,  as  we  prefer  to  enter 

13 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Life's  Sanctuary  through  the  soul  of  the  most 
spiritual  person  rather  than  through  the  primitive 
cell,  so  also  should  we  also  approach  Art's  Temple 
from  the  heights,  and  not  from  its  primordial 
depths. 

For  the  purpose  of  spiritual  orientation,  man 
assumes  that  there  is  a  God.  If  he  would  make 
measurements  on  a  boundless  prairie  he  must 
drive  a  peg  somewhere.  On  a  shoreless  sea  he 
must  sight  some  star.  Such  are  the  assumptions 
of  philosophy. 

We  may  assume,  therefore,  that  Life  moves 
horizontally  through  time,  and  that  Art  moves 
perpendicularly;  that  one  leaves  a  linear  trail — 
the  other,  vertical  signs.  But  we  must  not  assume 
identity  where  there  is  only  similarity,  because 
the  confusion  of  identity  with  similarity  has  been 
the  basis  of  a  world  of  trouble  to  human  thought. 
Parallel  lines,  corollary  phenomena,  and  similar 
phases  have  interfered  more  with  the  sequence  of 
deduction  and  the  logic  of  formulation  than  all  the 
known  lines  of  intersection  and  all  the  balancing 
forces  of  opposing  phenomena  put  together. 

Leaving  out  for  the  moment  the  many  different 
kinds  of  art,  and  considering  only  Painting,  no 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING  15 


difficulty  is  found  in  separating  Art  from  Life. 
This  is  the  first  step  in  the  formulating  of  a  work- 
ing hypothesis  which  shall  not  be  too  slippery  to 
lead  us  toward  that  which  we  wish  to  approach. 
The  next  step  is  a  pause.  For  it  is  as  necessary 
to  avoid  a  false  lead  as  it  is  to  follow  a  true  one. 

A  little  thought,  then,  is  soon  followed  by  the 
conclusion  that  this  particular  art  is  not  an  ex- 
pression of  life  or  character;  neither  is  it  a  guide 
to  the  intellect  nor  an  exemplar  of  ethics.  At  most 
it  is  one  of  the  many  languages  of  Life.  Yet  it  is 
only  a  language  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  medium  through 
which  emotion  finds  the  comfort  of  expression, 
and  the  intellect  a  kind  of  loafing  ease. 

The  aesthetic  feeling,  of  which  this  art  is  a 
symbol,  is  one  of  the  phenomena  which  proceeds 
as  a  branch  from  the  tree  of  Life.  Its  leafage  has 
changed  many  times  through  the  long  epoch  of  its 
existence ;  and  its  buds  have  borne  strange  fruitage, 
as  well  they  might,  since  they  have  passed  through 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  various  seasons  of  the  soul- 
But  the  aesthetic  longing — the  feeling — the  branch, 
however  bare  at  times  of  leaf,  or  barren  of  fruit, 
or  bizarre  of  blossom,  never  withered.  Thus, 
what  was  artistic  in  one  age  and  inartistic  in 


i6  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


another,  is  of  no  vital  importance.  For  this  is  the 
one  aspect  of  Painting — and  the  only  one — ^which 
is  permanent  and  imiversal. 

So  far  as  the  mind,  an  imperfect  instrument 
unsuited  to  many  tasks,  has  penetrated  the  Mys- 
teries, it  has  revealed  to  us  that  Life  itself  is  of 
changeless  function,  and  wholly  outside  the  pale 
of  evolution;  and  that  only  do  the  combinations 
change  to  which  Life,  in  one  way  or  another,  is 
related  and  involved. 

Thus,  that  which  directs  the  evolution  of  this 
art  is  precisely  similar  to,  if  not  exactly  identical 
with,  that  which  governs  both  organic  and  rela- 
tional evolution.  But  the  evolution  of  Painting 
is  very  different  from  the  aesthetic  principle  on 
which  it  depends — as  different  as  the  body  is  from 
its  life,  or  as  muscle  is  from  mind. 

The  art  is  something  infinitely  more  than  the 
painting  of  that  which  is  paintable.  For  it  must 
endow  the  paintable  with  emotions,  as  it  were, 
that  are  common  to  all  mankind — emotions  that 
all  men  feel  and  know  and  live,  and  in  some  form 
or  degree  express.  And  the  more  richly  it  charges 
the  canvas  with  these  emotions,  the  higher  it  rises 
as  an  art ;  until,  in  the  hands  of  a  master,  it  reveals 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


17 


such  subtle  and  noble  qualities  that  if  I  were  to 
personify  the  art  of  Painting  I  should  call  it  one 
of  the  blessed  ambassadors  of  God  charged  to 
convey  the  greetings  of  Beauty  to  the  wistful  eye 
of  man. 

The  esthetic  element  of  Painting  is  as  much 
outside  the  phase  of  evolution  as  its  parent,  Life. 
From  Apelles  to  Titian,  from  Titian  to  Inness, 
and  from  Inness  back  to  the  Aurignacian  artists 
of  the  stone  age  of  Europe,  twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  years  ago,  the  soul  of  this  art  remains 
exactly  the  same :  changeless,  serene,  and  sane  and 
great  as  a  demiurgic  god.  And  if  all  the  painter 
breed  were  killed  off**  to-day  by  some  happy 
chance,  and  all  their  works  destroyed  to-morrow, 
and  all  record  of  their  methods  burned  the  day 
after,  yet  within  a  century  or  two  the  art  would 
again  be  in  flower. 

And  the  reason  why  this  art  could  not  be 

exterminated,  as  many  species  have  been,  and  as 

some  so-called  arts  have  been,  is  because  it  is  a 

corollary  to  the  phenomenon  of  Life — because  its 

soul  is  continually  vibrant  to  human  consciousness : 

librating  with  longing — quivering  with  joy  and 

hallowed  with  memory  sweet  or  sad. 
2 


i8  ART-TALKS  JVITH  RANGER 


The  sensations  born  of  experience,  in  the  general 
run  of  mankind,  are  absorbed  and  dispersed  in 
everyday  cares  and  by  the  necessities  of  main- 
tenance. The  average  person  uses  up  his  high 
moods  in  crossing  the  hollows  of  life.  Sentiment 
harnessed  to  business  affairs  is  like  a  race-horse 
hitched  to  a  plough:  the  spirit  of  speed  must  be 
transmuted  into  a  pull — nervous  mettle  must  go 
into  muscle.  But  give  the  average  person  a 
holiday  in  a  picture  gallery,  and  his  high  moods 
come  back  in  a  measure,  just  as  the  race-horse 
indulges  in  frolic  bursts  of  speed  when  turned 
loose  in  a  pasture. 

The  artist-painter  is  the  race-horse  preserved 
from  the  plough  for  speed  and  speed  alone,  as  it 
were.  His  moods  are  higher,  his  emotions  stronger, 
and  his  intuitions  deeper,  and  his  facility  of  ex- 
pression suppler  and  all  his  desires  of  expression 
more  imperative  than  those  of  the  average  run  of 
men.  Thus  it  is  that  he  differs  from  the  others  of 
his  ordinary  fellows  a  little  more  or  less  in  degree, 
but  not  at  all  in  kind  or  substance.  If  it  were 
otherwise,  there  would  be  neither  incentive  nor 
demand  for  his  pictures.  He  would  no  sooner 
paint  for  a  blind  world  than  would  the  Beethovens 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


compose  symphonies  for  the  stone  deaf.  The 
mystery  of  his  genius  is  no  greater  than  the  mys- 
tery of  mood  in  the  humblest  folk.  There  is 
nothing  more  miraculous  in  his  inspiration  than 
in  the  desire  of  the  shepherd  boy  to  blow  music 
from  hollow  reeds. 

The  painter  thrills  with  the  pastoral  or  other 
beauty  of  a  scene,  and  strives  to  pass  the  thrill  on 
to  others  by  the  means  of  his  art ;  the  poet  feels  a 
like  thrill  and  tries  to  pass  it  on  in  words,  accord- 
ing to  his  art;  the  musician  feels  the  same  and 
attempts  the  similar  in  melody;  the  average  man 
feels  the  same  sensations;  but  instead  of  trying  to 
pass  them  along  to  others,  he  feeds  upon  them, 
and  thus  lives  moments  that  are  dramatic  or  epic 
or  lyric. 

That  is  to  say,  the  temperament  of  one  person 
inclines  him  so  to  apprehend  the  past  in  the  pre- 
sent that  he  is  conscious  only  of  the  past;  the 
temperament  of  another  tends  to  revel  in  dreams 
of  the  future  to  the  exclusion  of  the  conscious 
present;  and  of  another  to  find  his  high  moods  in 
the  sublimated  exuberance  of  the  present  moment, 
being  wholly  oblivious  to  the  past  and  the  future. 

Now,  when  the  painter's  emotion  is  limited  to 


20  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


the  nascent  joy  of  the  moment  his  soul  becomes, 
so  to  speak,  a  conscious  point  in  time,  synchronis- 
ing with  the  ever-fleeting  present  moment.  Work 
done  in  this  mood  is  called  lyrical.  He  captures 
the  transitory  experience  in  such  a  way  that  it 
may  arouse  in  others  a  similar  mood.  He  takes  an 
evanescent  wraith  of  the  moment  and  sends  it  on 
through  other  minds  as  a  dancing  sprite  of  the 
years. 

A  good  deal  depends  upon  how  he  deals  with  the 
emotion :  whether  he  sets  it  down  on  his  canvas  as 
ascending  the  curve  of  rhythm,  or  congeals  it  at 
the  crest,  or  plasters  it  on  the  descending  slope. 
If  he  indicates  it  as  rising  he  will  enable  his  work 
to  arouse  in  sensitive  souls  a  sensation  similar  to 
the  vague  dreams  of  wooing  love.  If  he  paints  it 
at  the  crest,  he  imparts  to  it  something  of  the 
supreme  passion;  but  if  he  places  the  soul  of  his 
art's  subtlety  on  the  rhythm's  downward  curve, 
he  must  inevitably  anticipate  by  some  shadow  of 
suggestion  that  mood  which  follows  a  dying  joy. 
And  nothing  else  in  his  art  is  so  eloquent  to  the 
initiated  as  this  placement  of  his  emphasis.  It 
is  not  only  a  standard  with  which  to  appreciate  one 
phase  of  his  character,  but  it  also  tells  in  some 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


measure  what  his  past  has  been;  and  it  augurs 
spiritually  somewhat  of  his  future.  And  it  does 
this  because  his  conscious  mind  takes  no  part  in 
the  process.  It  is  an  act  of  his  subconscious  nature, 
and  therefore  true — true  in  the  noblest  sense, 
because  it  is  adjusted  to  all  the  facts  and  expe- 
riences of  his  being. 

The  painting  which  best  fixes  the  transitory 
moment  is  the  most  lyric  in  character.  Twinkling 
leaves,  swaying  boughs,  running  water  or  dimpled 
pools,  happy  poise  of  cloud,  graceful  pose  of  kine, 
and  just  enough  haze  in  the  air  to  veil  the  distance 
with  mystery,  and  just  enough  gold  to  tell  the 
story  of  the  sun — these,  and  such  fugitive  things, 
are  the  lyrics  of  the  open  world.  They  are  the 
coquetry  of  Nature — the  perpetual  delight  and 
the  persistent  teasers  of  the  landscapist. 

The  very  nature  of  Painting  saves  it  from  the 
usual  defects  of  Poetry,  its  sister  art.  In  lyric 
painting  the  emotion  is  either  caught  or  missed. 
For  pigments,  unlike  words,  will  not  easily  permit 
the  high  mood  of  the  moment  to  degenerate  into  a 
moral,  or  to  overflow  into  a  reminiscence,  or  to 
rise  into  a  formless  and  variegated  cloud-bank  of 
prophetic  postulate.   This  is  what  trips  up  many 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


a  "Tonalist."  He  wooes  glaze,  wins  colour,  and 
loses  emotion.  He  courts  scumble,  wins  softness, 
and  loses  his  way  homeward  in  swamps  of  mush 
and  deserts  of  haze.  His  work  is  fated  to  be 
forgotten. 

There  is  a  nervous  quality  in  the  lyric  painting 
which  stands  for  two  things:  a  personal  element 
peculiar  to  the  artist,  and  the  sincerity  of  his 
feelings.  This  nervous  quality,  so  often  obscured 
by,  and  lost  in,  the  methods  of  the  Tonalist,  can- 
not be  simulated.  The  pen  of  the  clever  poet  may 
render  an  affectation  almost  as  convincing  as  a 
real  emotion;  but  no  amount  of  cleverness  can 
accomplish  this  disguise  with  the  brush  of  a  painter. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  really  successful 
painter  must  put  down  his  emotions  at  their  high 
tide  regardless  of  everything  else;  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  fitness  or  congeniality  of  the  times, 
the  requirements  of  his  age,  the  vogue  of  his  col- 
leagues, public  taste,  &c.  He  may  safely  trust  to 
time  for  sympathy  and  a  just  valuation  if  his  con- 
temporaries fail  him  in  appreciation.  Besides, 
what  more  should  any  painter  ask  than  the  privi- 
lege of  starving  to  death  with  a  sublime  faith  in 
the  future  glory  of  his  work? 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


23 


In  the  painter's  art,  the  secret  of  the  lyric  lies 
in  emphasis.  When  the  emphasis  dances  on  the 
flashing  stream  of  fleeting  moments  in  such  a  way 
as  to  remain  always  in  the  present,  we  have  the  ideal 
lyric.  But  when  the  emphasis  lingers  in  the  past, 
the  lyric  qualities  of  the  work  live  in  the  shadows, 
while  the  dramatic  are  uppermost  in  the  high- 
lights and  strong  in  the  half-tones.  And  the  secret 
of  emphasis  lies  in  the  artist's  temperament.  In 
this  relation  ''artistic  temperament"  has  real 
meaning.  Thus  the  painter  places  his  emphasis 
strictly  according  to  his  attitude  toward  Life  at 
the  moment  when  his  work  takes  on  soul — that  is 
to  say,  when  its  smiling  harmony  is  born  of  his 
intuition.  This  very  relationship  between  Art  and 
Life  has  led  many  a  commentator  far  afield. 

In  Painting,  the  lyric  demands  sincerity  of  feel- 
ing, and  the  dramatic,  seriousness.  There  is  no 
intermingling  of  comedy  and  tragedy  in  the  drama 
of  this  art  as  in  that  of  Literature.  For  no  matter 
how  men  and  times  may  differ  as  to  what  is  serious 
in  life,  no  one  would  ever  think  of  mistaking  the 
tragic  elements  of  a  painting,  as  expressed  in  tone 
and  form,  for  the  elements  of  comedy.  It  is  true 
that  many  a  picture  has  been  intended  as  tragic. 


24  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


and  was  believed  to  be  tragic  by  the  painter,  when 
it  was  merely  grotesque  and  comic.  Religious 
pictures  without  end  have  been  produced  of  this 
nature ;  but  they  never  fooled  the  rational  mind. 
They  were  always  just  as  ridiculous  to  common- 
sense  as  they  are  at  present. 

In  Painting  as  in  Literature,  and  more  in  Paint- 
ing than  in  Poetry,  lyric  qualities  necessarily  per- 
vade the  dramatic.  The  language  of  the  two  arts 
is  not  the  same.  For  its  efficiency  in  expressing 
thought  and  feeling,  one  depends  on  the  logic  of 
sound-symbol — on  the  proper  sequence  of  the 
flowing  stimuli  of  words,  phrases,  pause,  and  stress. 
The  other  depends  upon  fixed  relations  carefully 
adjusted  between  lines,  lights,  masses,  shadows, 
colours,  tones,  &c.,  and  the  relationship  of  oppo- 
sites,  the  balancing  of  which  forms  subtle  emphasis 
in  harmony,  or  the  lack  of  balancing,  a  discord. 

Dramatic  painting  then  may  be  highly  lyrical  so 
long  as  the  emphasis  is  on  the  past;  and  the  epic 
may  be  lyrical  so  long  as  the  accent  is  on  the 
future.  However,  the  epic  qualities  are  less  evi- 
dent in  painting  than  in  poetry,  where  they  are 
scarce  enough.  The  cause  of  this  difference  appears 
to  be  inherent  in  the  language  of  the  two  arts 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


rather  than  in  the  nature  of  the  two  artists.  Both 
painter  and  poet,  at  times,  ride  the  crests  of 
supremely  optimistic  moods,  from  the  heights  of 
which  destiny  appears  glorious  against  the  splendid 
dawn  which  hopeful  man  in  his  imagination  calls 
the  Future.  But  faith  in  destiny  is  harder  to 
express  in  the  language  of  painting  than  in  the 
* 'paeans'*  of  the  poet. 

A  few  religious  paintings  have  been  mildly  epic 
in  character;  some  have  been  superb  enough  to 
arouse  vague  sensations  of  the  supreme  will.  And 
a  few — a  very  few — historic  paintings  have  been 
great  enough  to  awaken  the  sensation  of  a  pre- 
destined future  inexorably  linked  with  a  fated 
past. 

Perhaps  the  best  epic  painting  that  the  world 
of  Art  has  known  was  done  during  the  pre- Alexan- 
drian period.  And  so  far  as  may  be  surmised  at 
this  time,  Timanthes  of  Cythnus  imbued  his  Sacri- 
fice of  Iphigenia  with  supreme  epic  qualities.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  greater  majesty — 
a  more  imperial  doom — than  was  shadowed  in  the 
epic  grandeur  of  that  picture  which  has  come  down 
to  us  only  in  fragmentary  descriptions. 

The  anthropomorphic  conception  of  destiny 


26  ART-TALKS  fVITH  RANGER 


was  more  favourable  to  the  epic  expression  in  Art 
perhaps  than  we  are  prone  to  think  at  this  time. 
It  is  true  that  instead  of  the  minor  Greek  divinities, 
and  later  "celestial  personages,"  we  have  other 
arbiters  of  the  future.  These  are  no  less  imperious 
because  far  more  reasonable.  Behold  the  dreams 
of  Feminism,  the  splendours  of  Eugenics,  the 
promises  of  Evolution,  and  the  wisdom  of  Prag- 
matism! But  where  are  the  prophets? 

Still,  persons  are  living  to-day  who  see  a  gestat- 
ing  divinity  in  our  labouring  race.  Among  such 
prospective,  optimistic  souls  there  must  be  artists 
whose  high  moods  scan  the  future  with  the  eye  of 
faith.  And  out  of  the  drama  of  yesterday  and  the 
lyric  of  to-day,  who  shall  say  that  Art  will  not 
weave  with  confidence  her  epic  tapestries  of  to- 
morrow? Surely,  the  prophets  of  the  soul  must 
address  us  in  the  language  of  painting  even  as  in 
that  of  poetry. 

The  art  of  Painting  is  restless  as  wind  and  tide; 
it  is  ever  agitated  with  endeavour,  and  pregnant 
with  hope;  it  symbolises  something  that  is  kin  to 
Life — something,  in  itself,  that  is  changeless;  yet 
something  that  seems  to  have  spiritual  needs  and 
aesthetic  ideals — something  that  helps  to  reveal 


A  THEORY  OF  PAINTING 


man  to  himself — something  that  illuminates  his 
moods  and  sanctifies  his  work — and  thus  approves 
his  struggles  in  the  glorification  of  his  aspirations. 

R.  H.  B. 

Note. — The  application  of  poetic  qualities  to  painting  is 
old;  and  the  statement  of  these  qualities  is  notoriously  loose.  I 
have  therefore  availed  myself  of  a  recent  illumination  from  a  new 
and  singularly  happy  point-of-view. 

With  the  modifications  made  necessary  by  the  inherent  dif- 
ferences of  the  two  arts,  the  theory  of  genres  in  poetry  covers 
admirably  the  three  dominant  characteristics  of  painting. 

Therefore  I  have  made  use  of  this  theory,  for  which  I  am  in- 
debted to  an  essay  on  "The  Kinds  of  Poetry,"  by  Professor  John 
Erskine  of  Columbia  University,  published  in  The  Journal  oj 
Philosophy,  November  7,  1912. 


FIRST  TALK 


ScHools,  CElc. 

GREAT  many  times  I  have  been 
asked  to  put  down  some  of  my 
experiences  in  art:  however,  I  have 
always  refused  heretofore,  since  I 
felt  that  a  painter  should  be  known  by  his  painting 
more  than  by  his  talk ;  but,  after  all,  as  one  of  my 
friends  says,  "Who  is  so  fit  to  speak  of  the  sea  as 
the  sailor?" 

As  a  boy,  I  took  to  art  naturally,  as  a  duck 
takes  to  water.  My  father  rather  encouraged  the 
idea  at  the  start,  as  he  thought  it  would  keep  me 
out  of  mischief.  Later,  when  he  learned  that  I 
thought  of  taking  it  up  as  a  profession,  he  mani- 
fested the  usual  opposition  that  comes  from  a 
sensible,  strong-headed  parent. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  I  landed  in  New 
York,  as  a  boy  of  twenty,  with  a  portfolio  of  very 
bad  water-colours  and  less  than  thirty  dollars  in 
my  pocket.   Rumours  of  a  new  art  movement  and 

28 


SCHOOLS,  &C. 


29 


of  the  wonderful  things  the  Barbizon  School  of 
painters  had  done  had  already  reached  us  in  the 
country,  where  we  were  disposed  to  pooh-pooh  it. 
However,  the  first  sight  of  a  fine  Corot  converted 
me. 

When  I  came  to  New  York,  American  art  was 
at  its  lowest  ebb.  The  old  Hudson  River  School, 
or  the  American  Diisseldorf,  which  had 

The  Ameri- 

been  popular  and  fairly  successful,  had  Diissel- 
become  thoroughly  discredited,  with  the  dorf,  or  Old 
result  that  the  two  leading  picture  Hudson 
houses,  Goupil  and  Schaus,  had  entirely 

School 

given  up  the  handling  of  American  art. 
I  remember  going  to  the  Goupil  Gallery,  where  I 
gave  my  twenty-five  cents  to  see  the  pictures,  and 
finding  nothing  but  foreign  paintings,  turned  to 
a  gentleman  whom  I  afterward  knew  as  Mr. 
Gehme,  and  asked:  ''Sir,  haven't  you  any  Ameri- 
can pictures?  "  I  can  recall  now  the  contemptuous 
way  in  which  he  replied:  "No  sir,  we  have  no 
American  pictures !  all  our  paintings  are  imported." 

I  learned  afterward  that  the  head  of  the  house, 
long  since  dead,  permitted  some  of  his  old  friends 
among  the  American  painters  to  send  in  an  occa- 
sional picture,  which  however  was  not  hung  on  the 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


walls,  but  only  given  a  quasi-endorsement  by  being 
allowed  to  stand  on  the  floor  of  the  gallery  against 
the  baseboards. 

The  Academy  Exhibitions  had  ceased  to  com- 
mand respect;  and  the  sales,  which  a  few  years 
previously  had  amounted  to  a  very  handsome 
sum,  had  almost  vanished.  There  was  bitter 
wailing  among  the  old-timers;  and  a  group,  which 
was  known  as  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table, 
met  evenings  at  Oscar  Pusch's,  where  most  of  the 
conversation  was  devoted  to  decrying  the  work 
of  the  men  who  had  supplanted  them  in  public 
favour.  I  was  allowed  to  join  the  group  occa- 
sionally; and  I  remember  first  meeting  David 
Johnson  and  Wyant  there. 

Neither  Mr.  Johnson  nor  Wyant,  though,  ac- 
cepted the  point-of-view  that  the  then  growing 
fondness  for  the  Barbizon  pictures  was  but  a 
passing  delusion.  David  Johnson  was  trying  to 
lose,  and  Wyant  had  succeeded  in  losing,  his 
Diisseldorf  manner,  and  was  beginning  to  be 
taken  seriously  by  the  collectors  who  appreciated 
the  new  art. 

At  this  time,  we  were  getting  back  from  the 
other  side  numbers  of  our  young  men  who  had 


SCHOOLS,  &C. 


31 


been  studying  abroad  in  Munich  and  Paris,  which 
had  succeeded  Rome  and  Diisseldorf  as  places 
possessing  the  true  artistic  atmosphere.  About 
the  same  time,  Mr.  Reichard,  who  had  been  one  of 
Mr.  Schaus's  salesmen,  broke  away,  and  opened 
a  gallery  in  the  Avenue  opposite  the  old  Bruns- 
wick, and  started  in  seriously  to  handle  American 
art.    Wyant  was  one  of  the  first  he  put  on  his  list. 

At  that  time,  I  was  paying  more  attention  to 
water-colours,  then  so  very  popular  with  the 
public,  than  to  oil;  and  Mr.  Reichard  took  me 
up  as  a  water-colourist,  with  the  result  that  I 
had  the  run  of  his  galleries  and  the  chance  to  study 
closely  his  importations  of  foreign  work. 

Looking  back,  it  seems  as  though  the  galleries 
then  were  flooded  with  fine  Barbizon  pictures.  It 
was  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  dealer,  re- 
turning from  his  annual  trip  abroad,  to 
bring  back  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  ex-  school 
amples  of  this  school.    And  we  really 
had  a  much  better  chance  to  study  the  works  of 
these  men,  here  in  New  York,  than  in  Paris  where 
I  shortly  went.    I  felt  that  if  I  could  go  to  the 
place  whence  came  these  masterpieces  which  I 
admired  so  much,  I  could  revel  in  them  to  my 


32  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


heart's  content ;  but  I  shall  never  forget  the  shock 
I  received  at  my  first  visit  to  the  Salon. 

As  I  remember,  I  could  not  find  there  a  single 
picture  of  the  sort  I  had  come  to  see.  I  found  the 
French  artists,  and  the  public  generally,  indiffer- 
ent to  the  Barbizon  men;  and  I  soon  realised 
there  were  more  good  Barbizon  pictures  to  be  seen 
in  America  than  in  Paris.  I  made  friends,  fortu- 
nately, among  the  dealers,  from  whom  I  found 
that,  when  a  good  Barbizon  picture  came  into  the 
market,  it  was  held  back  for  an  American  cus- 
tomer at  an  American  price.  It  was  another  case 
of  the  prophet  being  without  honour  in  his  own 
country. 

The  local  art  of  that  day  was  divided  into  as 

many  movements  as  there  are  now.    The  usual 

ambition  seemed  to  be  to  paint  a  Salon 
Schools        .  .  ,  1  1 

picture,  and  to  get  a  medal.    The  men 

who  failed  went  in  for  ''Freak  Art" — much  as 

they  do  now. 

The  men  of  the  Romantic  School,  who  had  made 

the  reputation  of  French  art,  had  passed  away  and 

left,  apparently,  no  influence.   Mr.  Stillman,  years 

after,  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for  August,  1892, 

speaks  of  this  fact,  saying: 


SCHOOLS,  &C. 


33 


The  French  School  of  the  moment,  while  technically 
at  the  head  of  modern  art,  is  but  the  apotheosis  of 
brush  work  and  the  speculum  of  the  surface  of  things, 
as  devoid  of  vitality,  as  cold  and  sterile  as  the  surface 
of  the  moon.  It  is  useless  to  call  up  men  like  J.  F. 
Millet,  Theodore  Rousseau,  and  two  or  three  others. 
They  are  voted  out  of  the  scheme  of  to-day,  and  form 
no  part  of  the  French  system. 

Besides  these  Salon  workers,  were  the  various 
groups  of  the  disciples  of  unrest.  The  Salon  of  the 
rejected  at  Passy,  headed  by  Monet  and  Manet, 
attracted  a  large  following.  I  remember  that  I 
was  very  much  impressed  by  them.  The  sense  of 
illumination,  the  quality  of  outdoors,  the  spon- 
taneity of  their  work,  appealed  to  me  very  strongly, 
and  I  came  near  joining  the  movement.  But, 
after  trying  their  methods  enough  to  feel  at  home 
in  them,  I  found  the  call  of  the  Romanticists 
stronger. 

Many  of  the  students  seemed  to  think  that  the 
value  of  the  Luministic  School  depended  upon  a 
peculiarity  of  technic;  and  they  failed  to  see  the 
good  in  it  that  existed  in  spite  of  the  peculiarities ; 
and,  as  a  natural  result,  their  ventures  in  "Lu- 
minism"  resulted  most  weirdly.  One  street  would 

3 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


be  full  of  men  who  insisted  that  the  only  way  to 
paint  was  to  use  pure  colour,  and  to  put  it  on  in 
dots.  These  were  the  Pointillists.  The  clique  of 
the  next  street  insisted  that  the  colotirs  should  go 
on  in  stripes,  which,  as  I  now  recollect,  looked  like 
little  coloured  worms  crawling  over  the  canvas. 
These  were  the  Stripists.  The  feuds  and  fights 
between  the  different  adherents  of  the  numerous 
cults  were  as  furious  as  the  feuds  between  the 
different  schools  of  to-day. 

I  kept  to  the  museums,  and  studied  my  old 
masters.  Not  that  I  really  liked  them ;  but  I  had  a 
dim  feeling  that  the  reason  why  I  did  not  like 
them  was  not  theirs,  but  a  fault  of  my  own;  and 
when  I  painted,  I  was  trying,  without  much 
success,  to  get  into  my  work  the  qualities  I 
admired  in  them.  At  the  Louvre,  I  found  my 
first  Constable,  which  opened  another  line  of 
sensations,  and  which  finally  sent  me  back  to 
Claude  and  Hobbema. 

About  this  time  I  met  a  little  French  dealer, 
who  called  himself  an  expert,  and  who,  besides 
doing  a  modest  business  in  modern  pic- 

"  G  D. " 

tures,  was  employed  by  a  number  of 
French  and  English  connoisseurs  to  buy,  in  the 


SCHOOLS,  &C. 


35 


Hotel  Drouet  sales,  such  things  as  he  thought  they 
might  like. 

G.  D.  was  a  charming  character.  When  he 
visited  me  in  the  country,  he  would  usually  bring 
along  a  little  picture,  a  Corot  often,  which  he 
would  put  on  the  foot  of  his  bed  to  study  while 
taking  his  morning  coffee.  His  father  had  been  a 
dealer,  and  particularly  a  patron  of  Monticelli. 
At  Monticelli's  death,  there  came  to  him  all  the 
artist's  remaining  pictures,  including  the  starts 
and  unfinished  sketches,  besides  many  incoherent 
works  of  his  late  absinthe  period.  These  pictures 
were  kept  in  the  coach-house,  in  the  courtyard. 
You  know,  in  the  old  days,  the  French  families 
kept  the  coach  in  the  coach-house,  and  would  have 
the  horses  brought  from  outside  when  required. 
So  this  coach-house  made  an  excellent  storage- 
place.  If  I  remember  rightly,  there  were  stored 
there  then  about  fourteen  hundred  examples, 
mostly  starts  and  sketches.  Most  of  the  com- 
pleted pictures  had  already  gone;  but  I  recall 
turning  what  was  left,  over  and  over,  studying 
Monticelli's  method  of  painting — and  with  this 
advantage:  the  facility  with  which  it  could  be 
traced  from  start  to  finish. 


36  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


I  recollect  meeting  there  at  different  times  the 
dealers,  Cottier,  Laurie  and  Obach,  and  Van 
Wisseling,  when  they  came  over  to  replenish  their 
stock  of  Monticellis.  They  would  go  out  to  the 
coach-house,  search  through  the  pile,  and  take 
into  the  store  for  a  final  selection  a  dozen  or  so  of 
those  nearest  completion.  The  rubbishy  things 
did  not  get  on  the  market  until  after  G.  D.'s 
death  in  1892  or  1893. 

G.  D.  took  a  very  kindly  interest  in  me,  and 
gave  me  all  sorts  of  good  advice,  usually  winding 
up  with :  Keep  away  from  the  Salon !  stick  to  the 
old  masters!  don't  go  chasing  medals!" 

As  I  have  remarked,  most  of  the  paintings  done 
over  there  then  were  in  what  was  called  le 
premier  coup  method.  The  old  methods  of 
painting  had  fallen  into  disrepute ;  and  to  speak  of 
varnish  and  glazes  was  regarded  almost  as  a 
deadly  sin,  let  alone  using  them.  I  had  made  some 
experiments  with  mediums,  and  believed  that  the 
use  of  them  might  be  valuable  to  me.  So  one 
day,  I  ventured  to  ask  G.  D.  if  he  thought  varnish 
a  safe  thing  to  use  in  painting.  *'Why  yes,  cer- 
tainly! the  Barbizon  painters  all  used  it."  I  said, 
*  *  Are  you  sure  ?  "  He  replied :  *  *  Yes !  I  have  often 


SCHOOLS,  &C. 


37 


bought  varnish  for  '  Papa '  Corot,  who  used  to  send 
to  my  father  to  have  varnish  and  other  things 
sent  to  him.  My  father  would  send  me  out  to  get 
them."  ''Well,"  I  said,  *'do  you  think  you  could 
get  some  of  that  varnish  now?"  "Yes!"  he  an- 
swered, "the  same  shop  is  around  there. "  "Would 
you  mind  going  with  me  to  get  some?"  "Not  at 
all!  Certainly  I  will  go!"  He  put  on  his  hat  and 
we  went  three  or  four  blocks  to  a  colourman's  and 
went  in;  he  asked  for  the  varnish,  and  we  got  a 
bottle  of  it.  I  did  not  know  what  I  was  using,  for 
the  bottle  was  labelled  only  "Vemis  a  Tableaux"; 
and  my  life  of  crime,  according  to  the  views  of  my 
confreres,  the  plein  airists,  began  then. 

Of  course,  when  I  came  out,  as  I  had  to,  with  my 
point-of-view,  every  man's  hand  apparently  was 
raised  against  me.  To  justify  myself — to  hold  my 
own  in  the  argument — and  to  defend  my  position, 
I  was  driven  to  seek  all  the  authorities  I  could  find. 
Besides,  I  was  cursed  with  a  logical  mind:  if  the 
thing  was  right,  I  wanted  to  know  the  reason  why; 
and  the  result  was  a  knowledge  of  old  methods, 
acquired  from  precept  and  by  practice,  that  I  now 
feel  a  pride  in  possessing. 


SECOND  TALK 


XecKnics 

HE  technic  of  painting  had  passed 

through  ages,   and  the  practices 

had  been  estabHshed  for  centuries. 

Every  art-student,  whether  he  had 

talent  or  not,  had  at  least  the  chance  of  learning  a 

safe  and  sensible  method.    In  fact,  he  was 

Technic  compelled  to  do  so.  But,  in  1 854,  came  an 
Changed  by  . 

Inventions  invention  that  marked  the  first  change. 
It  was  that  of  the  collapsible  tube. 
Previous  to  this  time  every  artist  had  each 
morning  to  take  his  paints  out  of  the  bag,  get  out 
his  slab  of  glass,  and  grind  up  the  colour  with  a 
little  oil  and  varnish  for  the  day's  work.  The 
collapsible  tube  saved  all  this  time  and  labour. 
But  in  order  to  make  the  colours  squeeze  readily 
from  the  tube,  it  was  necessary  to  grind  them  with 
considerably  more  oil  than  had  been  previously 
needed;  and  thus  it  became  possible  to  dispense 
with  a  medium. 

38 


TECHNICS 


39 


Shortly  after,  came  the  invention  of  photo- 
graphy, when  the  world  began  to  see  things  from 
a  different  angle  of  view.  Those  who  had  seen 
Nature  through  the  artists'  eyes  had  been  seeing 
things  through  a  romantic  veil.  And  now  came 
the  sensation  of  seeing  the  surface  of  things  with- 
out any  romanticism.  This  led  to  the  creation  of 
a  school  that  abandoned  the  established  methods 
of  painting,  and  presented  subjects  as  seen  from 
the  photographic  viewpoint.  Perhaps  Bastien 
Le  Page  was  the  ablest  exponent  of 
this  new  point-of-view.  His  success,  LePage 
and  that  of  his  followers,  was  tremen- 
dous, spreading  around  the  world ;  and  the  public, 
always  ready  for  a  new  sensation,  encouraged  and 
supported  the  new  movement. 

There  are  many  artists,  still  living,  who  can 
remember  the  miles  and  miles  of  Salon  canvases, — 
mostly  well-drawn, — mostly  well  composed, — and 
yet,  after  all,  pictures  that  were  nothing  but  large 
photographs  from  Nature  with  a  tint  in  them. 
Most  of  the  men  who  painted  those  pictures  are 
dead  now;  practically  all  the  pictures  are  dead; 
and  there  is  none  living  so  poor  as  to  do  them 
honour. 


ART-TALKS  fVITH  RANGER 


Eastlake^s  History  of  Painting,  with  which  I 
became  familiar,  after  I  had  already  dug  out 
valuable  chunks  from  earlier  writers,  gave  me  the 
formulas  of  the  methods  and  mediums  used  by 
many  of  the  old  painters,  going  back  as  far  as  the 
Primitives. 

This  reading,  together  with  experiments  in 
technic  which  I  was  continually  making,  enabled 
me  to  follow  with  increasing  assurance 

V7ISZ6S 

the  technical  methods  of  the  old  painters. 
G.  D.  had  lent  to  me  from  his  private  collection 
two  or  three  Barbizon  things  which  were  so 
sketchily  done  that  I  could  follow  their  methods; 
and  the  copying  of  them,  in  which  I  remember  I 
would  first  analyse  their  methods,  and  then  try  to 
understand  the  reasons  why,  had  opened  up  the 
subject  greatly.  It  finally  dawned  on  me  that  all 
the  old  painters — good,  bad,  and  indifferent — had 
used  glazes  and  varnish;  and  I  noticed  that  no 
matter  how  much  the  recipes  for  the  mediums 
and  varnishes  varied,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
one  man  might  insist  upon  the  introduction  of 
a  few  drops  of  this,  or  a  few  drops  of  something 
else,  in  his  medium,  there  were  two  things  that 
always  persisted :  a  gum  and  a  solvent. 


TECHNICS 


41 


Now,  in  tracing  up  results  as  shown  in  the 

pictures  left,  and  finding  that  the  use  of  mediums 

had  proved  satisfactory,  it  seemed  to  me 

that  the  value  must  consist  in  the  gum  ^"f^, 

a  Solvent 

and  solvent,  and  not  in  the  varying 
additions.  With  that  in  mind,  the  next  question 
came:  Why  is  varnish  a  good  thing;  why  is  it 
apparently  necessary;  what  function  does  it  per- 
form? And  it  became  clear  to  me  that  in  glazes, 
varnish  is  an  ideal  solvent  for  colour.  And  I  say 
this,  no  matter  how  many  of  my  artist  brothers 
disagree  with  me, — the  glaze  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary in  getting  the  full  strength  of  colour.  The 
Primitive  painters  virtually  constructed  their  pic- 
tures entirely  of  glazes. 

In  the  practice  of  Titian,  Rembrandt,  and  Velas- 
quez and  followers,  the  glazes  were  spread  over  the 
canvas,  to  be  modulated  by  superimposed  opaque 
and  semi-opaque  colour.  This  gives  textures  and 
scintillations  of  tint,  besides  a  prevailing  colour, 
impossible  to  be  had  in  any  other  way. 

A  glaze  is  simply  colour  dissolved  or  suspended 
in  a  medium  which,  when  washed  over  a  light  sur- 
face, is  transparent,  allowing  the  light  to  go 
through  and  be  reflected  back.    It  is  merely  a 


42  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


varnish  or  oil  wash  instead  of  a  water-colour  wash. 
The  basic  principle  of  its  charm  is  analogous  to 
that  of  stained  glass.  Take  a  bit  of  glass  of  any- 
colour,  hold  it  in  your  hand  and  look  at  it  away 
from  the  light!  it  is  one  thing  now;  but  when  you 
look  through  it  at  the  light  it  is  immediately  much 
richer  and  fuller  in  tone;  it  is  now  another  and 
more  beautiful  thing.  I  feel,  now,  that  for  an 
artist  to  paint  without  the  use  of  glazes  is  like  a 
man  trying  to  fight  with  one  hand  tied  behind  his 
back.  No  matter  how  well  he  does,  he  could  do 
better  with  the  use  of  the  other  arm. 

Shortly  after  this,  I  went  to  Holland.  My  first 
sight  of  the  works  of  Israel,  Maris,  Bosboom,  and 


wanted  to  know  them  also.  I  felt  them  to  be  the 
lineal  successors  of  the  Barbizon  School.  So  I 
went  to  Holland,  as  you  might  say,  with  my  hat 
in  my  hand  and  love  and  admiration  in  my  heart. 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  all  and  knowing 
some  of  the  masters  intimately;  and  I  have 
always  remembered  their  kindness. 

I  knew  Mauve,  and  talked  with  him  a  great  deal, 


The 

Dutchmen 


Mauve  gave  me  the  same  thrill  which  I 
had  received  from  my  first  acquaintance 
with   the   Barbizon   painters;   and  I 


TECHNICS 


43 


and  I  recall  this  little  instance  of  his  help.  I  had 
formed  a  habit  in  particular  of  always  carrying  a 
sketch-book;  and,  when  walking  around,  if  some- 
thing flashed  before  my  eyes  that  seemed  so  beau- 
tiful it  must  be  painted,  I  got  out  my  sketch-book 
and  made  a  "thumb-nail  note";  and  then,  when 
I  got  back,  I  tried  to  do  the  thing  from  memory. 
Of  course,  besides  this,  I  was  unceasingly  painting 
directly  from  Nature.  But  during  my  walks 
sometimes  things  would  happen.  A  subject  which 
I  might  have  seen  a  hundred  times  and  never  felt 
that  I  wanted  to  paint,  might  possibly,  through 
a  passing  cloud  that  hung  in  just  the  right  place, 
or  something  else,  become  so  fine  that  I  could  not 
resist  taking  a  shot  at  it ;  and  unless  I  could  jot  it 
down  in  the  few  instants — the  effect  was  so  fleeting 
that  it  would  not  even  allow  me  to  unpack  a 
sketch-kit,  if  I  had  one  with  me — the  sensation 
would  be  lost  to  me.  In  France,  this  habit  of  work 
I  was  almost  ashamed  of,  because  there  the  catch- 
word was:  paint  everything  honestly,  literally,  and 
directly  from  Nature.  Nothing  that  depended 
upon  memory  was  considered  as  having  any  merit ; 
and  I  remember  I  spoke  of  this  to  Mauve,  and 
asked  him  if  he  thought  the  practice  safe.  He 


44  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


laughed  and  said:  "Why,  all  the  old  masters 
worked  this  way ;  and  I  paint  all  my  pictures  from 
sketches."  His  practice  was,  at  that  time,  instead 
of  carrying  a  small  sketch-book,  to  carry  a  large 
one  of  grey  paper  in  which  to  jot  down  his  impres- 
sions, as  they  occurred,  with  charcoal  or  artist's 
chalk.  Many  of  these  sketches,  which  later  be- 
came pictures,  were  sold  in  this  country  after  his 
death. 

Mauve  was  a  very  delightful  man.  The  Dutch- 
men generally  were  simple,  healthy  livers — free 
from  posing  and  affectation.  They  were  a  little 
slow  in  warming-up  toward  a  stranger;  but  when 
satisfied  in  regard  to  his  sympathies  and  ideals  and 
seriousness,  they  soon  became  kindness  itself. 

I  remember  when  Mauve  came  back  from  Paris. 
His  dealer  had  persuaded  him  to  allow  an  im- 
portant picture  to  go  to  a  Salon  exhibition.  The 
picture  was  very  much  liked,  and  captured  a 
medal.  During  the  exhibition,  Mauve  was  in- 
duced to  run  over  to  Paris,  where  he  had  not  been 
for  many  years,  to  see  how  his  picture  looked,  &c. 
He  returned  home  disliking  the  Salon,  Paris,  and 
the  manner  of  life  there. 

During  his  stay  in  Paris,  he  called  on  Detaille, 


TECHNICS 


45 


whom  he  had  known  in  student-days;  and  was 
much  shocked  to  see  Detaille,  as  an  old  boule- 
vardier,  wax  his  face,  and  make  up  as  a  still  dash- 
ing dandy  before  going  out  for  his  afternoon  stroll. 
All  this  was  very  distasteful  to  Mauve,  who,  like 
the  rest  of  the  Dutch  artists,  was  too  earnest  in  his 
work  to  have  time  for  small  vanities. 

Mauve,  after  early  years  of  struggle,  had 
just  arrived  at  the  point  where  his  pictures  were 
marketed  as  soon  as  finished.  He  had  left  The 
Hague  and  gone  to  Laren,  a  little  hamlet  near 
Hilversum.  There  he  had  built  for  himself  a 
comfortable  house  with  an  inside  studio  and  an 
outside  glass  studio,  where  he  could  study  animals 
in  any  weather,  if  he  wished.  His  income  had 
become  greater  than  his  modest  outgo;  and  I 
recollect  his  saying  how  good  God  was  in  letting 
his  work  be  liked  so  that  he  could  paint  with  a 
mind  free  from  worry  over  money-matters. 

When  the  medals  were  distributed,  Mauve*s, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  his  address  was  unknown, 
was  sent  to  Boussod,  Valadon  &  Co.  at  The 
Hague,  to  be  delivered  by  them.  They  accord- 
ingly notified  Mauve  several  times  that  his  medal 
was  in  their  possession,  and  asked  him  to  come  and 


46  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


get  it — but  without  result.  Finally,  some  weeks 
after,  they  handed  it  to  B  aster t,  who  happened  to 
be  in  their  place,  and  requested  him  to  deliver  it 
on  his  return  to  Laren.  And  this  led  to  an  amusing 
evening. 

Kever,  Bastert,  Poggenbeek,  and  two  or  three 
others  of  the  junior  artists  invited  Mauve  and 
his  wife  to  dinner  at  the  little  inn  where  they  were 
staying.  It  was  arranged  that  the  shepherd  who 
appears  in  most  of  Mauve's  sheep-pictures,  and 
whose  income  had  been  materially  increased  by 
having  his  flock  at  certain  places  at  certain  times 
for  Mauve 's  use,  was  to  appear  in  the  dining-room 
at  the  close  of  the  dinner,  winding  up  the  ceremony 
in  a  neat  little  speech,  which  Poggenbeek  had  care- 
fully prepared  and  had  had  him  rehearse  several 
times — which  ended  with:  "My  Herr  Mauve, 
you  have  given  me  much  in  the  past ;  now  I  want 
to  give  you  something. "  At  that  moment  he  was 
to  put  the  medal  into  Mauve's  hand.  The  evening 
went  off  delightfully  and  merrily.  At  the  ap- 
pointed time  the  shepherd  appeared,  but  unfor- 
tunately he  was  paralysed  with  stage-fright,  and 
only  succeeded  in  saying  after  a  long  halt:  ''Here 
it  is.'' 


TECHNICS 


47 


Another  thing  happened  which  perhaps  I  should 
not  mention.  In  the  awarding  of  the  medal, 
Mauve  only  received  it  by  a  majority  of  one  vote. 
The  artist  who  ran  so  close  to  Mauve  was  one  of 
his  admirers.  On  a  visit  to  Holland,  the  same 
summer,  he  called  on  Mauve  to  congratulate  him; 
and,  incidentally,  did  not  forget  to  mention  several 
times  the  difference  of  one  vote. 

The  younger  artists  were  intensely  loyal  to  their 
elders,  and  rather  resented  the  idea  that  any 
other  animal  painter  could  come  within  one  vote 
of  their  beloved  Anton.  So  on  the  night  of  the 
dinner,  Poggenbeek  had  prepared  of  this  artist  a 
paper  effigy,  which  was  hid  behind  the  piano  in 
the  dining-room.  It  was  attached  to  a  string 
which  ran  over  a  pulley  to  Poggenbeek's  chair. 
And  when  the  medal  was  presented,  the  effigy, 
with  outstretched  arms  in  protest,  slowly  rose 
from  its  place  of  concealment.  This  added  fine 
touch  of  hilarity  to  the  occasion. 

Apropos  of  medals :  I  will  never  forget  a  remark 
made  by  one  of  the  Dutch  artists  to  one  of  the 
Paris  crowd  during  a  discussion  of  those 
who  had  taken  medals  and  honours  in 
recent  Salons.  During  a  pause  he  said :  "  There  is 


48  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


one  thing  for  which  we  are  very  proud  of  our  Jack 
Maris."  "What  is  that?*'  was  asked.  The  reply 
was :  "He  has  never  taken  a  medal.*'  And  at  that 
time,  at  least,  it  was  true.  This  was  a  staggerer 
for  a  moment ;  but  in  another  instant  was  flashed 
back :  "Well,  he  should  have ! ** 

One  charming  thing  I  remember  of  the  Dutch 
painters  was  their  universal  simplicity.  One 
seemed  to  feel,  no  matter  how  great  they  were, 
that  they  still  considered  themselves  students. 
They  were  ever  ready  and  willing  to  help  and 
advise  any  youngling  who  was  in  earnest.  I  am 
very  much  indebted  to  them  for  the  technical 
suggestions  and  illuminating  remarks  I  heard  dur- 
ing their  conversation.  There  was  none  of  that 
pose  of:  "Look  up  to  me!  I'm  a  master!"  which 
you  encounter  so  often  in  Paris,  and  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  once  in  a  while  in  America. 

I  remember,  too,  of  getting  that  summer  a  very 
interesting  insight  into  Israel's  methods.  He  had 
been  painting  a  picture,  I  think  called  The 
Ft u gal  Meal,  in  which  was  shown  a  baby  in  a 
cradle.  Israel  had  passed  the  period  of  painting 
directly  from  models.  If  he  came  to  a  place  in  the 
progress  of  the  picture  where  he  was  uncertain — 


TECHNICS 


49 


if  he  did  not  remember  just  how  things  looked — 
he  would  send  for  a  model,  make  what  sketches 
he  needed — turn  them  to  the  wall — then  go  back 
and  paint  on  the  picture.  He  sent  for  the  baby 
and  made  a  number  of  pencil  sketches  on  scraps 
of  paper  as  the  baby  rolled  around  in  the  cradle. 
One  of  these  sketches  was  given  to  me,  and  I 
finally  gave  it  to  Mr.  Trumble,  the  old  art- writer. 
I  feel  sure  the  poetry  and  charm  in  Israel's  paint- 
ings are  largely  owing  to  his  avoidance  of  slavish 
imitation  of  the  model. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  say,  I  found  the  Dutch 
painters  painting  in  the  old  methods:  using  me- 
diums and  glazes  as  they  saw  fit.  They  adopted 
the  custom  as  an  inherited  tradition. 

As  I  said  before,  I  had  become  impressed  with 
the  fact  that,  I  might  say,  up  to  this  time  all  the 
fine  pictures  in  the  world  had  been  painted  with 
the  use  of  mediums  and  glazes.  And  to  qualify 
the  statement,  so  it  may  not  seem  to  be  an  ar- 
tistic "cure  all,"  I  will  add:  and  also  all  the  poor 
ones. 

I  became  interested  in  what  might  be  called 
the  evolution  of  the  technic  of  painting — or  rather 
the  technic  of  which  we  have  any  record — which 

4 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


really  goes  back  only  to  the  time  of  the  Primitives. 
And  after  careful  study,  I  am  sure,  from  the 
remaining  fragments,  that  the  practices  of  the 
older  schools  must  have  been  about  the  same,  as 
human  nature  usually  works  about  the  same  way 
under  given  conditions.  If  a  bridge  is  to  be  put 
across  a  stream,  all  things  being  equal,  it  will  be 
put  across  the  narrowest  place. 


THIRD  TALK 


MetHods  and  Instances 

HE  first  art  of  our  period  was  the 
illumination  of  the  missal;  and 
what  came  later  was  developed 
from  that  beginning.  Paper  and 
vellum,  however,  soon  became  unsatisfactory  to 
the  ambitious  artist — he  demanded  something 
better. 

The  next  thing  was  to  create  an  artificial  surface 

that  would  take  the  place  of  paper — one  that 

would  be  permanent  and  unyielding. 

We  got  then  into  the  preparation  of  '^^^ 

"Primitive" 

panels,  usually  of  oak,  often  of  great  Method 
size,  and  of  several  pieces  joined  to- 
gether.    These  were  carefully  smoothed  and 
covered  with  a  white  surface  not  tmlike  that  of 
a  large  sheet  of  cardboard. 

The  primitive  method,  which  is  the  same 
through  all  the  schools,  was  to  draw  in  a  careful 
outline,  then,  as  in  Durer's  practice,  to  cover  the 

51  - 


52  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


lighter  parts  with  a  yellow  wash,  and  the  darker 
parts  with  a  reddish-brown  wash.  These  early 
painters  would  then  model  the  lights  and  shadows, 
starting  with  a  careful  cross-hatching  like  a  Ger- 
man lithograph,  to  be  later  stippled  into  smooth- 
ness. This  was  done  in  transparent  colour;  that 
is  to  say,  with  colour  dissolved  in  water,  white  of 
egg,  thin  varnish,  or,  possibly,  oil,  as  in  the  Van 
Eycks'  method.  The  garments  and  certain  other 
parts  of  the  picture  might  take  an  opaque  wash. 
Sometimes  in  the  representation  of  lace-work, 
strings  of  pearls,  and  in  small  high-lights,  &c., 
which  were  difficult  to  leave,  they  would  use  a 
thick  white  colour  which  corresponds  to  Chinese- 
white  as  now  used  in  water-colour,  and  which 
even  now  stands  out  from  the  transparent  sur- 
roundings like  pimples. 

When  the  picture  had  arrived  at  this  stage, 
the  last  thing  was  to  cover  the  panel  with  a  coat 
of  varnish  usually  containing  some  warm  colour 
in  solution,  which  covered  it  with  a  harmonious 
envelope  and  locked  it  up.  This  was  the  prac- 
tice that  continued  through  hundreds  of  years, 
basically  the  same  in  all  the  schools,  and  which 
perhaps  found  its  culmination  and  finest  expres- 


METHODS  AND  INSTANCES  53 


sion  in  Botticelli,  whose  wonderfully  subtle  out- 
lines remain  an  artistic  joy. 

Now  this  method  must  have  been  very  trying 
to  some  temperaments,  especially  to  the  more 
impulsive.  Leonardo,  who,  if  he  had  lived  later, 
would  certainly  have  been  one  of  the  broadest  of 
what  we  call  broad  painters,  started  his  pictures 
according  to  the  methods  of  his  time  with  the 
rigid  outline;  and  his  process,  judging  from  the 
unfinished  picture  which  hangs  in  the  Vatican, 
was  to  do  his  modelling  with  direct  washes  without 
the  previous  laborious  cross-hatching,  as  employed 
by  Diirer. 

In  the  Barbarini  Collection,  there  is  another 
portrait  of  the  Mona  Lisa  with  a  different  back- 
ground, but  with  the  same  inscrutable  smile  as 
that  of  the  one  in  the  Louvre.  In  this  portrait, 
the  rigid  outline  around  the  lips  and  on  the  side 
of  the  cheeks  was  stippled  out,  in  "miniature" 
fashion,  which  gives  the  smile  its  elusive  qual- 
ity, and  records  Leonardo's  rebellion  against  the 
imperative  line.  In  the  same  collection  hangs  an 
interesting  Durer  which  is  only  begun  in  one  part, 
half -finished  in  another,  and  completed  in  the  rest 
of  the  picture,  which  shows  his  method  absolutely. 


54  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Art  went  along  with  practically  no  technical 
changes — only  personal  variations  of  what  is  vir- 
tually the  same  method — imtil  the  time  of  Titian, 
who  had  been  taught  the  ancient  usages,  and  who 
followed  the  old  traditions. 

I  like  to  imagine  Titian  as  I  feel  he  must  have 
been:  a  fine,  robust,  red-blooded  man  with  an 
Titian  impulsive  temperament,  who  found  great 
pleasure  in  his  drawings  and  in  the 
beautiful,  broken,  chalk  and  charcoal  outlines 
thereof;  who  put  vitality,  directness,  dash — an 
impulsive  charm — in  his  frescoes  that  he  was 
unable  to  get  in  his  pictures.  His  must  have  been 
the  temperament  that  instinctively  rebelled  against 
the  conventional,  laborious,  rigid  line;  and  I 
fancy  him  as  puzzling  over  the  matter,  and,  with 
his  inventive,  logical  mind,  as  saying:  There  is 
something  in  the  frescoes  which  I  can*t  get  into 
the  picture.  Why  can't  I  start  a  picture  as  a 
fresco,  and  then  glaze  it  and  varnish  it,  and  see 
if  I  can't  still  work  on  it,  amplify  its  colour 
and  volume,  and  yet  preserve  something  of  the 
fresco's  careless  charm?"  He  tries  it  and  finds 
it  good.  The  last  technical  factor  that  has 
been  given  to  art  came  then.    Previously  they 


METHODS  AND  INSTANCES 


had  line,  light,  shade,  and  colour.  Now  we  have 
texture. 

Of  course,  converts  were  many.  His  school 
became  established.  The  principle  was  sound. 
Raphael  felt  the  need  of  the  same  thing ;  and  those 
who  know  him  find  in  his  frescoes,  especially 
The  School  of  Philosophy,  a  nervous  force  and  an 
impulsive  charm  that  are  lacking  in  his  pictures. 
His  later  works  show  that  he  was  feeling  the 
influence  of  Titian,  and  that  he  was  on  the  road  to 
a  change  in  technical  expression. 

The  textures  of  Titian  are,  however,  distemper: 
a  water-colour  process  which  has  the  drawback 
of  drying  so  rapidly  that  complete  control  is 
difficult,  so  that  occasionally  he  would  get  a  false 
texture  in  his  work  like  a  bubble  that  shows  on  the 
leg  of  "Profane  Love"  in  the  picture  of  Sacred 
and  Profane  Love  in  the  Borghese  Gallery.  In 
the  same  gallery  on  the  other  side  of  the  room  is 
a  character-picture  of  a  woman  which  was  started 
in  distemper,  and  left  without  any  of  the  superim- 
posed glazes  which  would  have  come  later.  This 
illustrates  his  method  perfectly. 

By  the  time  of  Velasquez  and  Rembrandt  and 
Andrea  Sacchi,  only  eighty  years  after  Titian,  the 


56  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


use  of  white-lead  ground  in  oil  had  supplanted 
chalk,  which,  when  mixed  with  water,  is  the  basis 
of  distemper.  Probably  the  slower  drying-quality 
of  oil- white,  which  gave  more  chance  of  manipula- 
tion, was  the  main  reason  for  the  change. 

Since  that  time  I  do  not  think  there  has  been 
any  technical  advance.  I  think  the  substitution 
of  oil-white  for  distemper,  thus  permitting  the 
working  into  and  crossing  of  transparent  with 
opaque  colour,  accounts  for  the  greater  depth  of 
colour  found  in  the  Rembrandts  and  Velasquezes 
compared  with  the  works  of  Titian,  whose  pictures, 
with  all  their  beauty,  are  nevertheless  drier  in 
colour  and  more  on  the  surface. 

There  is  another  function,  and  a  most  important 
one,  in  the  use  of  varnish  besides  that  of  being  a 
medium  in  which  to  dissolve  and  manipulate 
colour.  Sir  Charles  Robinson,  who  was  the  Con- 
servator of  public  pictures  in  England,  as  the 
result  of  a  great  number  of  scientific  experiments, 
which,  curiously  enough,  coincided  with  the  his- 
torical data  found  in  Eastlake  and  other  writers, 
published  in  the  North  American  Review  of  March, 
1893,  an  abstract  of  results;  and  his  dictum  at  the 
end  was:     Every  picture  must  he  varnished  to  pre- 


METHODS  AND  INSTANCES  57 


serve  it.  It  is  safer  to  over-varnish  a  picture  than  to 
under-varnish  it;  and  the  Mastic  varnish  is  the  one 
permissible  varnish  to  use^  He  admits  it  is  not 
ideal,  but  its  friability,  which  permits  its  removal 
without  a  solvent,  makes  it  the  safest. 

The  old  authorities  continually  speak  of  three 
varnishes :  amber,  imitation  amber  (which  is  copal) , 
and  mastic;  and  copal  is  very  often  loosely  called 
amber  by  the  old  writers.  But  whatever  varnish 
is  referred  to,  remember  this ! — it  is  only  a  gum  in 
a  solvent,  after  all.  The  function  of  the  gum  is  to 
lock  up  the  colours — to  embalm  and  protect  them 
from  internal  chemical  reaction  and  external  gases, 
as  well  as  surface  friction.  Such  fugitive  colours, 
for  instance,  as  gamboge,  orpiment,  yellow  lake, 
and  others,  are  permanent  when  kept  under  var- 
nish. It  is  on  the  same  principle  as  that  which 
preserves  a  fly  or  a  twig  or  a  leaf  fallen  into  liquid 
gum  thousands  of  years  ago.  The  gum  is  now 
amber.  When  the  surface  is  polished,  you  find  the 
fly,  the  twig,  and  the  leaf  as  perfect  in  colour  as 
they  were  in  the  unknown  centuries  of  the  dim, 
old  long-ago. 


FOURTH  TALK 


General  KemarKs 


NE  thing  seems  noteworthy:  when  a 
group  of  forty  or  fifty  or  a  hundred 
representative  pictures  are  brought 
together  from  the  ItaHan,  Dutch, 
Spanish,  Early  EngHsh,  Barbizon,  Modern  Dutch 
and  even  some  from  the  American  school,  the  work 
hangs  together  without  a  jarring  note. 
Harmony  ^  collection  made  in  London  four  or 
five  years  ago,  consisting  of  work  cover- 
ing about  four  hundred  years,  one  of  the  critics 
speaking  of  the  obvious  harmony  said :  "It  seems 
as  though  they  might  have  been  painted  by 
brothers  working  in  the  same  year  instead  of 
covering  all  these  centuries.** 

Now  these  pictures  are  the  survival  of  only  a 
small  fraction  of  one  per  cent,  of  the 
Survivals    pictures  produced  in  this  period.  And 
Ephemerals  o\it  of  all  the  thousands  and  thousands 
of  painters  who  have  lived,  eliminating 
the  men  of  our  own  time,  there  are  only  about 

58 


GENERAL  REMARKS 


59 


fifteen  hundred  names  that  appear  in  the  books 
of  reference.  Out  of  these  fifteen  hundred,  only 
about  eight  hundred  are  represented  by  any  known 
work  in  pubHc  or  private  collections.  The  rest 
of  the  output  has  perished,  and  has  been  as 
ephemeral  as  most  of  the  writing  and  music  of  the 
same  period.  Indeed,  the  majority  of  the  painters 
of  those  days  were  as  ephemeral  as  are  most  of  the 
writers  and  composers  of  our  present  time. 

Keeping  in  mind  the  harmony  which  exists 
among  the  survivals,  it  seems  possible,  if  one  could 
find  a  common  factor  in  these  durables,  that  it 
might  prove  to  be  a  clue  to  the  future,  if  not  a 
guide.  Certainly,  one  thing  which  they  have  in 
common  is  what  we  call  tone;  and  to  get  tone,  it  is 
necessary  to  use  mediums  and  glazes;  and,  if  the 
artist  masters  the  uses  of  these,  even  then  he 
cannot  be  saved  unless  salvation  is  bom  in  him. 

When  we  realise  how  few  are  the  survivals,  it  is 
evidently  much  easier  to  paint  a  bad  picture  with 
a  good  method  than  a  good  picture  with  either  a 
good  or  bad  method.  The  Old  Master*'  is  simply 
a  classic  in  art — as  rare  as  a  classic  in  literature. 
The  imdeniable  fact  that  the  old  masters  were  all 
superb  craftsmen,  is  my  apology  for  all  this  in- 


6o  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


sistence  on  the  importance  of  method.  For  if  an 
artist  has  the  feeHng  in  him — if  he  wishes  to  try  to 
scale  Parnassus — he  may  have  a  chance  with  a 
good  technic ;  but  he  surely  has  less  chance  with  an 
imperfect  one. 

One  is  tempted  at  times  to  wonder  whether  the 
present  system  of  art  education  is  not  based  on 


calcomania ;  later,  wax-flowers  and  mottoes  had  an 
inning.  In  my  time,  it  broke  out  in  admiration 
for  what  is  called  "real  art,"  and  is  manifested 
in  a  multitude  of  Art  Schools  which  flourish  up  and 
down  the  land. 

In  the  old  days,  when  a  boy  wished  to  become 
an  artist  he  was  apprenticed  to  learn  the  trade  of 


he  had  the  chance  to  learn  good  craftsmanship ;  so 
that  as  he  grew  riper  and  developed,  if  God  had 
given  him  something  to  say,  he  had  the  language 
with  which  to  express  it. 


Art 

Education 


error.  In  our  grandmothers*  time  the 
decorative  instinct  worked  itself  out 
in  samplers  and  in  a  primitive  kind  of  de- 


Old 

'Prentice 
Days 


painting;  and  he  went  in  and  wore  a 
smock  and  ground  his  master's  colours 
and  got  on  according  to  his  deserts. 
One  thing  was  sure:  if  he  had  it  in  him, 


GENERAL  REMARKS 


6i 


But,  in  our  day,  students  are  left  largely  to  pick 
up  the  technical  part  as  they  can.  They  receive 
an  enormous  amount  of  art-talk  which  is  usually 
as  far  above  their  heads  as  post-graduate  lectures 
would  be  to  a  freshman.  I  have  asked  sometimes 
why  they  were  not  more  practically  taught;  and  I 
have  been  told  that  it  was  dangerous  to  interfere 
with  students*  ''individuality."  In  my  opinion, 
it  would  be  better  in  most  cases  if  they  could  lose 
their  individualism.  I  fail  to  see  any  danger  to  the 
student  in  putting  the  proper  tools  into  his  hands 
and  showing  him  how  to  use  them.  If  any  student 
has  real  individuality,  nothing  can  take  it  away. 

Another  thing  that  seems  foolish  to  me  now,  is 
the  going  abroad  to  study  too  soon.  Our  schools, 
for  the  first  few  years,  are  fully  adequate 
to  give  all  that  can  be  absorbed  by  the  ^  sSdy 
beginners.  Our  museums  are  now  rich 
enough  in  examples  to  feed  the  student  during 
his  earlier  years;  and,  at  length,  when  he  knows 
what  he  wants  to  do,  it  is  time  then  for  him  to  go 
abroad  and  get  what  the  museums  over  there  can 
give  him. 

It  takes  a  long  time  for  most  artists  really  to  like 
and  understand  the  old  masters.    I  know  some 


62  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


of  them  were  a  sealed  book  to  me  for  many  years. 
I  confess  with  shame  how  long  it  took  me  really 
to  like  and  understand  Hobbema.  It  is,  I  fancy, 
as  though  a  young  student  were  given  Chaucer  or 
Spenser  to  read  in  the  original.  I  don^t  imagine 
that  many  would  make  much  out  of  it.  But  if 
they  persevered  until  they  came  to  the  point  where 
they  were  not  bothered  by  the  obsolete  peculiari- 
ties of  spelling,  &c.,  and  where  they  could  appreci- 
ate what  they  were  reading,  the  interesting  part 
would  begin.  We  have  to  become  used  to  the 
idioms  of  many  of  the  older  men  before  we  can  get 
at  the  beauty  of  their  work. 


FIFTH  TALK 


THe  Wisdom  of  Copying  as  a  Means 
of  Edvication 

OR  the  past  two  decades,  and  at  the 
present  time,  the  copying  of  master- 
pieces of  older  artists  has  almost 
entirely  ceased.  This  branch  of 
art-study  was  formerly  insisted  on  as  a  necessary 
part  of  every  art-student's  curriculum. 

The  cessation  of  this  practice,  which  has  the 
most  respectable  authority  behind  it,  both  of  logic 
and  experience,  may  be  partly  owing  to  the  lack  of 
sympathy  between  the  technics  of  the  schools  of 
the  past  forty  years,  and  those  which  preceded 
them;  and  also,  perhaps,  to  a  spirit  of  egotism 
which  developed  during  this  period,  and  which 
inculcated  an  exaggerated  idea  of  individuality, 
coupled,  naturally,  with  a  lack  of  respect  for 
ancient  methods  which  are  too  often  looked  upon 
as  obsolete.  This  neglect  of  tradition,  and  con- 
tempt for  long-established  practices,  accounts  for 
a  great  deal  of  the  misinterpretation,  so  often 

63 


64  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


encountered  in  our  profession,  of  the  means  used 
to  secure  certain  results. 

Reynolds  often  speaks  of  the  advantages  he 
received  from  his  copying  during  his  stay  in  Italy ; 
and  similar  tributes  to  the  value  of  this  branch 
of  study  occur  in  the  writings  and  history  of  all 
the  great  painters. 

I  remember  that  when  I  first  went  abroad  I 
was  imbued  with  the  prevailing  prejudice  against 
copying  as  implying  a  lack  of  originality  and  a 
kind  of  artistic  slavery. 

In  London,  where  I  saw  my  first  Academy 
Exhibition,  I  was  much  impressed  by  some  por- 
traits that  suggested  two  masters  I  had  been 
studying  seriously:  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez. 
Of  course,  I  looked  up  the  name  of  the  painter 
and  found  it  to  be  Frank  Holl,  who  at 
gQjj         that  time  was  entirely  unknown  to  me. 

I  learned  by  inquiry  that  he  was  the 
leading  man  in  portraiture  in  England.  Later,  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  and  chatting  with  him 
at  the  Savage  Club. 

He  talked  to  me  in  a  very  frank  and  kindly 
manner,  and  told  me  what  I  have  always  remem- 
bered and  thought  much  about :  id  est,  to  the  effect 


COPYING  AS  A  MEANS  OF  EDUCATION  65 


that  he  still  made  it  a  rule  to  devote  two  months  of 
each  year  to  copying  from  Rembrandt  and  Velas- 
quez— going  to  Holland  or  Spain  expressly  for  the 
purpose. 

Two  years  or  so  later,  in  the  prime  of  life,  HoU 
died,  from  overwork,  it  was  said.  During  his  last 
years,  his  income  was  currently  estimated  at  the 
enormous  sum,  for  that  time,  of  over  $250,000. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say,  a  slavish,  unthinking  copy, 
such  as  one  sees  made  in  every  public  gallery, 
cannot  be  of  value.  For  it  is  a  mere  bit  of  imita- 
tion. 

I  remember  copying  a  Corot  which  taught  me 
more,  on  certain  valuable  points,  than  I  could  have 
learned,  merely  through  observation,  in  several 
years.  It  was  an  almost  completed  little  picture 
which  Corot,  I  think,  had  started  from  Natiure 
and  carried  on  in  his  studio.  It  belonged  to  my 
friend,  G.  D.,  who  allowed  me  to  copy  it,  with  only 
one  restriction:  that  I  was  not  to  make  it  of  the 
same  size. 

I  studied  the  picture  for  some  days,  trying  to 
follow  Corot' s  method  step  by  step,  and  to  imder- 
stand  perfectly  the  reasons  why.    When  I  had 
worked  them  out  in  a  logical  manner,  I  put  the 
5 


66  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


picture  up  before  me,  and  went  to  work  as  though 

I  were  doing  it  from  Nature  and  not  from  a 

picture.    The  result  was,  what  one  might  call, 

more  of  a  spiritual  than  a  literal  copy.    But  the 

performance  fixed  in  my  mind  certain  truths  that 

might  have  taken  me  years  to  discover  by  myself. 

The  subsequent  history  of  my  copy  may  be 

amusing.    It  travelled  with  me  in  my  trunk  for 

three  or  four  years.   In  the  vicissitudes 

^  of  travel  the  panel  became  split,  and  I 

"Spurious"  .  .  . 

Corot  repaired.   One  night  in  my  room 

at  the  New  Bath  Hotel  at  Rotterdam, 

it  occurred  to  me  that  my  copy,  which  always 

looked  too  much  like  a  new  painting,  had  served 

its  purpose.    So,  having  heard  of  the  virtues  of 

smoke  in  aging  a  picture,  in  a  spirit  of  curiosity  I 

decided  to  make  the  experiment.   I  turned  up  my 

lamp,  which  burned  whale-oil,  till  it  smoked  freely 

and  held  my  copy  in  the  smoke  until  thoroughly 

covered  with  lampblack.  The  next  day  I  scrubbed 

it  off — finally  using  turpentine.  When  I  varnished 

it  I  found  it  had  gained  at  least  fifty  years  in  age, 

and  as  much  in  charm.   During  the  day,  I  had  a 

call  from  my  friend  W.  H.  Kohler,  the  art-expert 

and  dealer,  who  had  an  establishment  known  as 


COPYING  AS  A  MEANS  OF  EDUCATION  67 


the  Museum  Arti.  He  saw  my  smoked  copy, 
and  insisted  on  having  it  for  his  collection  of 
spurious  art.  So  we  marked  it  on  the  back: 
"Copied  from  the  original,  owned  by  G.  D.,  by 
myself.  '* 

Kohler  was  a  great  character;  originally  a 
banker,  he  had  ended  by  devoting  himself  to  art. 
And  in  certain  lines,  especially  pottery  and  silver, 
he  was  considered  one  of  the  best  experts  in  the 
North.  His  great  delight  was  to  entertain  some 
visiting  museum  director,  or  critic,  and  have  him 
admire  some  piece  in  his  collection  so  as  to  have 
the  opportunity  of  saying:  "Yes,  it  is  very  fine; 
but  it  is  only  a  reproduction."  Sometimes  the 
visitor  would  still  insist  on  the  genuineness  of  the 
piece — but  Kohler  was  infallible.  He  died,  I 
think,  in  1895,  or  thereabout.  Now  I  often  wonder 
if  my  copy  will  ever  turn  up  as  an  original ! 

We  frequently  hear  discussed  whether  it  is 
possible  to  make  a  copy  that  will  defy  detection. 
Of  course,  the  ordinary  copy  declares 
itself  across  the  room,  and  at  first  glance.  copies 
To  make  a  convincing  copy  one  must  be 
a  man  of  such  great  talent  that  his  ego  will  prevent 
his  submerging  himself;  he  must  also  have  an 


68  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


extraordinary  adaptability,  which  is  lacking  in  the 
most  creative. 

It  is  said  of  Teniers  that,  being  ordered  to  copy 
some  masterpieces  for  Philip,  he  succeeded  so 
well  that  it  was  difficult  for  his  contemporaries 
to  distinguish  between  original  and  copy.  If  this 
is  true,  it  would  be  practically  impossible  to 
differentiate  them  to-day.  And  to  all  purposes, 
one  would  be  artistically  as  valuable  as  the  other. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  works  of 
certain  artists,  and  certain  kinds  of  art,  lend 
themselves  to  copying  with  much  more  facility 
than  others.  A  Millet  or  Rousseau,  from  the 
tremendous  knowledge  exposed  in  its  construction, 
has  made  it  practically  impossible  to  copy  either 
in  a  manner  that  will  deceive.  While  Corot,  with 
his  mysterious  veiling  of  form,  has  been  preyed 
upon  by  the  unscrupulous  who  have  produced  an 
enormous  number  of  more  or  less  plausible  imita- 
tions with  which  to  gull  the  public. 

The  same  thing  is  occurring  among  the  work  of 
our  dead  American  painters.  George  Inness  and 
Homer  Martin,  in  their  later  poetic  and  more 
suggestive  manner,  relied  less  on  exposed  con- 
struction than  on  mystery  and  colour.  Forgeries 


COPYING  AS  A  MEANS  OF  EDUCATION  69 


are,  consequently,  more  often  attempted  of  their 

work  than  that  of  Wyant,  who  always  kept  in 

evidence  more  constructive  drawing. 

The  production  of  bogus  art  will  continue  as 

long  as  we  have  no  law  making  it  a  crime  to  forge 

a  picture.    And  when  such  a  law  shall  _ 

Bogus  Art 

be  seriously  contemplated,  it  will  neces- 
sarily be  extremely  difficult  to  frame — one  that 
will  define  the  difference  between  the  legitimate 
and  illegitimate  copies. 

Personally,  I  don't  believe  it  is  possible  for 
the  temperamental  painters  whose  works  are,  as 
some  one  has  said,  the  result  of  a  series  of  carefully 
prepared  accidents — work  produced  at  great  heat 
— to  make  a  literal  copy  even  of  their  own  work. 
I  know  it  would  be  an  absolute  impossibility  for  me 
to  repeat  with  exactness  anything  of  my  own. 

So  when  I  find  pictures  called  replicas  by  Titian 
and  succeeding  masters  of  his  type — particularly 
if  they  are  precisely  the  same,  line  for  line  and 
mark  for  mark — I  know  they  are  done  by  another 
hand;  that  the  temperament  which  produced  the 
original  could  not  wear  the  chains  necessary  to 
produce  the  other.  An  exact  repHca  in  Tonal  Art 
is  a  temperamental  impossibility.   In  an  art  that 


70  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


is  more  precise  I  can  see  the  possibility,  both  of 
reproducing  and  in  copying  it. 

I  remember  a  case  in  point.  As  a  boy  in  Syra- 
cuse, one  of  my  first  artist-friends  was  a  portrait 
painter  named  Sanford  Thayer,  who 
EpiscTde '  heen  a  pupil  and  disciple  of  Elliot, 

and  who  had  succeeded  in  assimilating 
style  and  manner  so  closely  that  Elliot  advised 
him,  if  he  ever  hoped  to  have  a  personal  style  of 
his  own,  to  leave  his  studio  and  start  out  for 
himself.  So  Thayer  located  in  Syracuse;  and  I 
had  the  run  of  his  studio,  as  well  as  his  friendship 
and  confidence. 

A  painting  that  always  hung  on  his  studio-wall 
was  a  portrait  by  Elliot  of  a  very  beautiful  woman 
playing  the  guitar.  Thayer  admired  it  so  much 
that  he  asked  and  received  permission  to  copy  it  for 
himself.  He  kept  the  original  so  long  that  the 
family  (Elliot  being  dead)  became  impatient,  and 
finally  imperative,  and  came  with  a  carriage  to  take 
the  picture  away.  Thayer  by  this  time  had  got  on 
his  dignity ;  and  when  they  called  for  the  picture 
he  showed  them  two  precisely  alike,  in  similar 
frames,  telling  them  to  pick  out  their  picture,  and 
take  it  away.    They  were  unable  to  tell  which 


COPYING  AS  A  MEANS  OF  EDUCATION  71 


was  which ;  and  Thayer  mercilessly  refused  to  help 
them.  It  was  only  after  several  conferences  that 
they  finally  decided  on  one  as  the  work  of  Elliot's 
own  hand. 

Thayer  never  said  so,  but  from  a  certain  exulta- 
tion of  manner  when  telling  the  story,  I  was  led 
to  believe  that  it  was  the  copy  which  had  been 
selected,  and  not  the  original. 

One  must  remember  that  these  were  the  days 
in  American  art  when  imitation  was  considered 
wonderful,  and  an  end  to  be  achieved.  It  was  in 
this  period  when  Church  played  his  famous  trick 
of  painting  a  bit  of  sunlight  on  his  studio-table — 
fooling  his  friends  into  searching  for  the  chink 
that  let  it  in.  Now  the  fashion  has  gone  to  the 
other  extreme,  and  we  despise  imitation,  perhaps 
too  much. 


SIXTH  TALU 


Painting 

ITHOUT   going   into   the  subject 
deeply,  one  is  tempted  to  believe 
that  every  new  movement  has  its 
prototype  in  the  past.     I  have 
always  fancied  that  the  technic  of  the 
Prototypes  Luminists,   perhaps  best  typified  by 
Monet,  Sisley,  and  Pissarro,  had  its 
inception  in  the  mosaics  of  Italy,  particularly  the 
Venetian. 

The  superior  carrying-power  of  the  church- 
pictures  done  in  strips  of  coloured  glass  has  always 
been  noticed.  A  church  decoration  done  in  oil 
loses  its  effect  at  a  comparatively  short  distance; 
while  the  pictures  in  mosaics  easily  carry  very 
much  farther.  The  theory  is  that  large  vibrations 
of  colour,  as  in  mosaic- work,  opposed  to  the  smaller 
and  less  vigorous  vibrations  of  painting,  require  a 
much  longer  distance  to  be  fused  by  the  eye  into  a 
harmonious  whole.  The  subtle  vibrations  of  colour 
in  a  Rembrandt  or  a  Velasquez  are  meant  to  fuse 

72 


PAINTING 


73 


at  a  distance  of  about  three  and  a  half  to  four 
times  the  length  of  the  picture.  This  is  about 
the  distance  the  normal  eye  will  take  in  the  picture 
comfortably  in  the  area  of  vision  without  being 
disturbed  by  having  to  turn  the  eye  to  see  the 
sides  (outer  edges),  and  without  being  distracted 
by  surrounding  detail. 

With  Monet  and  the  others,  who  are  basically 
Tonalists,  the  vibrations  which  they  produce 
arbitrarily,  instead  of  subtlely,  require 
a  distance  of  from  three  to  five  times  ^^power 
as  great,  or  twenty  to  thirty  times  the 
length  of  the  picture,  in  order  that  the  eye  may 
fuse  the  colour  and  give  the  picture  its  full  charm. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  they  obtain  a  greater 
sense  of  light  and  atmosphere  of  a  certain  sort  than 
is  possible  by  the  other  method.  Of  course  the 
apparent  gain  is  penalised  by  the  loss,  or  reduction 
of  qualities, — which  seems  a  pity, — such,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  charm  of  positive  line,  subtlety  of 
colour,  and  sonority  of  tone.  Successful  examples 
of  Night,  Sunset,  or  Autumn  hardly  exist,  so  far  as 
I  recall,  in  this  school.  However,  when  all  is  said 
and  done,  the  problem  must  be  solved  by  the 
personal  equation. 


74 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


A  few  years  ago,  following  a  new  theory  that  a 
"fiat"  surface  gave  the  effect  of  more  air  than  a 


the  start  from  some  of  the  experimental  phases  of 
Monet,  Manet,  and  the  others.  This  led  to  the 
introduction  of  an  absorbent  canvas;  and  the 
paints,  when  first  squeezed  from  the  tubes,  were 
even  put  on  blotting-paper,  to  absorb  as  much  of 
the  oil  as  possible.  The  medium  was  turpentine. 
The  result  was  a  painting  that  looked  like  a  chalk- 
drawing,  and  was  of  course  opposed  to  the  old 
theories,  as  well  as  to  Sir  Charles  Robinson's 
dictum  that  ''every  picture  must  he  varnished  to 
preserve  it'';  and  that  ''it  is  safer  to  over-varnish 
than  to  under-varnish  a  picture,'' 

Nearly  thirty  years  have  passed  since  that  day ; 
and  I  remember  what  a  time  we  had  in  getting  the 
large  Wyant  Adirondack  Scenery,  formerly  in  Mr. 
Evans's,  now  in  Mr.  Heam's  collection,  locked  up 
and  embalmed  in  varnish.  This  particular  picture 
was  an  experiment  of  Wyant's,  which  he  made  one 
season  when  he  painted  on  absorbent  canvas.  I 
know  we  thought  it  gained  very  much  in  colour 


"Flat" 
Surfaces 


shiny  one,  there  came  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  some  painters  to  make  their 
pictures  look  like  pastels.    They  took 


PAINTING 


75 


and  charm  by  being  so  treated.  The  Durand-Ruels 
have  had  a  similar  experience.  They  began  some 
years  ago  to  get  their  Monets  under  a  coat  of 
varnish.  These  pictures  have  also  gained  by  the 
treatment. 

When  in  Boston  some  time  ago,  I  noticed  at 

the  museum  a  Monet,  loaned  by  a  local  collector, 

which  had  not  had  this  preservative 

treatment.   It  was  one  of  the  Mediter-  Preserva- 
tive 

ranean-trip  series,  which  I  remember  as  Methods 
so  brilliant  originally  in  light  as  to  be 
almost  dazzling — the  lights  on  the  cliff  being 
flickers  of  chrome  yellow  and  the  shadows  lumi- 
nous purples.  When  I  saw  it,  time  had  done  its 
work  on  the  unprotected  surface;  the  chrome  yel- 
low had  blackened  until  the  shadows  were  more 
luminous  than  the  lights,  making  it  almost  a  neg- 
ative in  effect.  Virtually  all  that  remained  of 
its  original  charm  was  a  silhouette  of  its  composi- 
tion. How  its  owner  could  have  seen  the  picture, 
month  by  month  and  year  by  year,  without  dis- 
covering the  change  seems  un-understandable ;  but 
apparently  he  had  not  discovered  it.  I  ventured 
to  suggest  to  him  the  necessity  of  varnishing  the 
rest  of  his  large  collection  of  this  school .    My  sug- 


• 


76  ART -TALKS  WITH  RANGER 

gestion  was  met  with  incredulity  and  indifference, 
which  conveyed  the  idea  to  me  that  he  thought  it 
was  only  the  whim  of  a  painter,  until  I  told  him  the 
Durand-Ruels  were  varnishing  their  pictures,  and 
advised  him  to  talk  it  over  with  Mr.  Joseph 
Durand-Ruel  the  next  time  he  saw  him. 

An  artist  often  runs  across  the  idea,  pronounced 
or  implied,  that  because  he  is  a  painter,  he  is 
necessarily  narrow  in  his  sympathies  and  conse- 
quently a  poor  judge  of  art ;  and  that  therefore  his 
opinions  must  be  taken  with  several  grains  of 
allowance.  In  a  way,  I  am  sorry  to  admit,  it  may 
be  true.  I  know  many  laymen  whose  critical 
opinion  I  would  take  in  preference  to  many 
of  my  own  profession.  But  it  must  also  be  re- 
membered that  these  are  exceptional  laymen :  one 
in  ten  thousand,  or  perhaps  one  in  a  hundred 
thousand. 

No  one  should  dispute  that  the  average  artist 
is  a  better  judge  of  art  than  the  average  layman. 
And  I  maintain  that  the  exceptional  artist  is  still 
superior  in  critical  judgment  to  the  exceptional 
layman.  Ruskin  says,  and  I  think  truly,  that 
*'the  final  judgment  (of  art)  always  has  and  a;l- 
ways  will  come  from  the  artist. " 


PAINTING 


77 


The  popular  mistake  is  to  assume  that  because 

many  men  paint  and  are  tagged  as  "artists,"  all 

are  consequently  on  the  same  level  of 

1  •        •  Popular 
aim  and  attainment.  The  truth  is  quite  Fallacies 

to  the  contrary.  If  we  look  for  a  parallel 
in  the  arts  of  music  and  literature,  it  is  obvious 
that  we  should  not  go  to  a  writer  of  waltzes  or  of 
ragtime,  no  matter  how  eminent  in  his  particular 
line,  for  a  critical  analysis  of  a  new  symphony. 
Neither  would  one  go  to  a  popular  writer  of 
''Shilling  Shockers"  for  an  opinion  of  a  new  poem. 
Like  appeals  to  like — and  the  layman  with  sym- 
phonic sympathy  and  appreciation  will  probably 
be  a  better  judge  of  what  we  call  serious  music 
than  the  professional  musician  whose  sympathies 
and  taste  fall  short  of  this  standard.  This  simile 
seems  as  applicable  to  the  art  of  painting  as  to 
the  other  arts,  and  should  explain  the  injustice 
and  the  fallacy  of  the  original  contention:  that  an 
artist  is  necessarily  an  unsound  judge  of  art. 

Do  not  understand  me  as  contemning  the  pro- 
ducer of  popular  music,  literature,  or  pictures. 
The  world  would  be  drearier  without  them.  They 
fill  a  popular  want,  and  would  not  exist  if  they  were 
not  wanted.   They  give  to  many  all  the  art  their 


78  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


natures  require,  and  give  to  some  a  stepping-stone 

to  something  higher.    None  of  us  should  become 

so  serious  that  an  occasional  funny  print  or  popular 

song  cannot  be  relished.   We  must  sometimes  let 

the  bow  relax. 

Another  popular  fallacy  is  that  the  American 

is  naturally  devoid  of  art,  and  solely  devoted  to  the 

pursuit  of  wealth  and  material  things. 
Idealists      ^  ^ 

My  experience,  which  perhaps  has  been 
particularly  happy,  is  that  we  have  a  large  per- 
centage of  altruistic  idealists.  The  numerous  and 
increasing  museum-foundations  only  serve  as  a 
small  illustration  of  the  case  in  point.  I  know  that 
with  many  collectors  it  is  not  simply  pride  of 
possession;  that  their  pictures,  which  they  share 
with  their  friends  and  with  the  public  by  constant 
loans  to  exhibitions,  have  taught  them — and  this 
is  the  supreme  test  of  understanding — to  find  their 
own  pictures  out-of-doors.  And  this  is  one  of  the 
great  fimctions  of  an  artist:  not  alone  to  produce 
a  concrete  work  of  art,  but  to  teach  the  observer 
how  to  find  the  beauty  around  him. 

No  one  realised  the  charms  of  sky  and  weather 
and  heath  or  the  beauties  of  lowland  rivers  until 
Constable  interpreted  them.    No  one  realised 


PAINTING 


79 


fully  the  interest  of  the  clipped  poplars  of  France 
or  the  delicate,  tree-veiled  beauties  of  pond  and 
stream  until  Corot  translated  them.  And  so,  each 
artist  has  contributed  his  bit  toward  showing  what 
a  beautiful  world  we  live  in.  And  the  American 
artist's  mission  should  be  to  translate  and  em- 
phasise the  poetry  of  the  land  we  were  born  in  and 
love  the  most. 

I  feel  that  my  little  bit  of  New  England,  which 
I  know  and  love  so  well,  is  reeking  with  poetic 
suggestion.    I  often  say  to  my  foreign 

N6W 

friends  in  a  spirit  of  paradox:  It  is  the  England 
oldest  pastoral  landscape-country  in  the 
Western  world.  Our  farms  which  were  thoroughly 
tilled  for  a  century  or  more  have,  for  the  past 
hundred  years,  been  slipping  back  into  picturesque 
neglect ;  while  Europe  has  been  forced  to  improve 
and  utilise  every  agricultural  resource,  with  the 
result  that  every  lane  almost  has  become  a 
macadam  road;  the  careless  foliage  that  bordered 
road  and  stream  has  given  way  to  scientific  plant- 
ing. The  pond  at  Corot 's  Ville  d'Avray  has  lost  its 
charm.  Holland  has  replaced  the  ground  roads  of 
the  old  Holland  with  brick  pavements.  And  so  it 
goes.    But  in  New  England,  the  country  lanes  are 


8o  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


full  of  brush  and  grass  and  flowering  weeds,  with 

the  little-used  waggon  track  zigzagging  between 

tumbled-down  stone  walls  and  rickety  rail  fences. 

I  never  get  into  a  farmer's  back-fields  with  their 

ridges  of  rock,  recurringly  stripped  of  timber, 

*  ,n  -t-  X  without  feeling  what  a  race  of  uncon- 
A  Tribute  ^ 

scious  heroes  the  pioneers  must  have 
been.  I  think  of  them  as  leaving  their  homes  in 
small  ships,  and  of  their  making  a  voyage,  the 
dangers  of  which  all  who  live  on  the  coast  can 
realise.  I  think  of  their  innumerable  hardships, 
of  their  fierce  battles,  and  am  amazed  at  their 
invincible  courage.  When  I  think  that  they  had  to 
fight  the  Indians  for  the  privilege  of  landing,  and 
realise  their  still  more  arduous  conflict  with  soil 
and  climate  in  their  larger  fight  of  conquering  a 
living  from  the  forest-grown  and  rock-ribbed  hills, 
I  am  filled  with  reverence  and  wonder.  Yet  they 
did  it. 

Then,  there  are  the  little  country  graveyards — 
I  should  say,  farm  graveyards — for  each  family  had 
its  burial-place  where  the  beloved  dead  could  lie  in 
sight  of  the  house,  and  near  the  scenes  of  their 
labours.  I  say,  when  I  pass  these  graveyards  I 
always  feel  like  saluting. 


PAINTING 


8i 


My  little  town  has  a  church-record  which  shows 
that  at  one  time  in  the  early  days  all  the  men  were 
carrying  a  rifle  at  the  front,  fighting;  and  the 
women  had  to  discharge  the  deacons'  duty,  and 
pass  the  plate  for  collection. 

I  am  sorry  for  any  one  who  knows  this  country, 
and  yet  does  not  feel  its  romantic  charm.  I 
would  like  to  get  into  my  pictures  of  this  region  a 
little  of  the  love  I  feel  for  those  who  made  it.  As 
for  me,  a  landscape  to  be  paintable  must  be 
humanised.  All  landscapes  that  have  been  well 
painted  are  those  in  which  the  painter  feels  the 
influence  of  the  hand  of  man  and  generations  of 
labour.  I  think  this  is  one  reason  why  no  man  has 
made  a  success  in  painting  outside  his  own  coun- 
try. For  no  matter  how  well  he  knows  a  foreign 
land  superficially,  he  must  still  remain  an  alien. 
I  realised,  when  living  abroad,  that  a  French  farm, 
or  even  an  English  one,  was  not  mine.  While 
here,  in  my  own  country,  I  understand  naturally 
why  the  wood-lot  was  kept,  and  why  the  lane  over 
the  hill  to  the  bam  must  lead  to  a  back  pasture. 

A  farmer  can't  cut  down  a  tree  or  build  a  fence 
or  dig  a  ditch  or  throw  a  bridge  across  a  rill  with- 
out helping  to  humanise  his  land.  And  a  sensitive 

6 


82  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


person  will  unconsciously  feel  the  spell  woven  by 
generations  of  husbandmen  piling  the  stones  from 
the  fields  into  walls,  often  with  their  rifles  lying 
close  at  hand;  he  will  enter  into  their  lives  and 
share  in  imagination  their  troubles  and  rewards. 
A  landscape  is  as  human  as  an  individual — so  is 
a  tree.  Sometimes  I  feel  that  I,  a  poor  descend- 
ant of  these  men,  mark  a  decadence  by  merely 
painting  amidst  the  scenes  of  their  heroic  labours 
instead  of  doing  more  virile  work. 


SEVENTH  TALK 


New  Factors  in  tKe  Development  of 
Landscape  Painting 

^^^^^SS  I  said,  when  I  first  went  to  Paris  in 
^^^^1  the  eighties,  the  Luminist  move- 
^O^^V^I  ment  was  just  reaching  the  crest 
of  the  wave.  I  don't  see  how  any 
landscape-painter  with  the  love  of  Nature  in  his 
heart  could  fail  to  recognise  the  charm  of  light  and 
air  in  the  Luminist's  expression  of  feeling  for  out- 
door work.  There  was  an  underlying  truth  to  the 
movement  that  was  valuable.  And  yet,  after  all, 
a  truth  is  only  a  truth  when  it  is  just,  in  its  relation 
to  other  truths. 

I  think  the  group  contributed  a  new  factor  in 
the  presentment  of  landscape  which  will  influence 
the  art  of  the  future  as  the  previous 
discoveries  have  in  the  past.  It  seems  p^ard 
now,  if  we  look  the  results  over  calmly, 
to  have  been  a  natural  and  logical  expression 
along  a  well-indicated  line. 

To  make  this  clear,  it  is  necessary  to  review 
83 


84  ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


the  early  schools.  Landscape-art  lagged  behind 
that  of  figure-painting  in  the  art-epoch  with  which 
we  are  acquainted,  and  to  which  we  belong.  The 
final  technical  development  in  the  expression  of  the 
figure  came  in  the  sixteenth  century  to  the  Vene- 
tians, whose  methods  have  influenced  all  succeeding 
schools.  I  am  only  speaking  of  the  technical  part 
necessary  to  the  fullest  and  most  satisfactory  expres- 
sion of  the  thought.  I  think  most  artists  will  agree 
that  there  has  been  no  superior  technical  expression 
to  that  of  Titian,  Rembrandt,  or  Velasquez.  A  few 
names  are  sufficient  to  exemplify  my  meaning. 

The  superior  power  of  tone  over  positive  colour, 
and  the  superiority  of  suggestion  over  positive 


Suggestion  scape  passages  were  introduced  by  the 


serious  presentment  of  Nature  as  the  dominant 
thing,  of  what  existed  under  the  sky  and  out-of- 
doors,  came  with  Salvatore  and  Claude.  In  their 
hands,  however,  landscapes  were  finished  in  an 
elaborate  way,  with  a  niggled  touch,  that  sug- 
gested the  technic  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  style. 


Tone  and 
Colour — 


statement,  were  understood,  and  had 
become  an  artistic  law.    Where  land- 


and 

Statement 


earlier  masters,  they  were  subordinated 
as  accessories;  and,  we  may  say,  the 


DEVELOP  MEN  T  OF  LANDSCAPE  PAIN  TING  85 


And  the  same  laborious  expression  of  petty  things 
continued  through  the  work  of  Hobbema  and 
Ru^^sclael.  The  method,  however,  was  continually 
becoming  fuller  and  broader.  The  genius  of 
Constable  added  to  it  loose,  suggestive  features 
corresponding  with  those  which  had  been  de- 
veloped in  figure-painting  by  the  Venetians.  Thus 
a  new  landscape  manner  blossomed  into  fulness. 

The  Constable  freedom  of  expression  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Frenchmen,  of  the  School  of 
1830,  who  mastered  it  thoroughly.  And  this 
brings  us  to  the  Luminists. 

Before  continuing,  do  not  understand  me  as 
trying  to  belittle  the  earlier  giants  who  saw  and 
understood  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  Nature,  and 
proclaimed  them  with  a  love  and  power  which 
make  their  work  live  in  spite  of  imperfections 
which  we  might  call  to-day  an  inadequate  tech- 
nical expression. 

Speaking  of  Claude,  the  wonderful!  unfortu- 
nately he  seems  to  be  as  little  known  by  the 
artists  as  among  the  laymen.    No  one 

has  lived  who  was  more  sensitive  to  the  ^f^^f 

Wonderful 

emotional  side  of  Nature  than  he,  or  who 

was  wider  in  sympathies  with  her  diverse  moods. 


86 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


To  know  Claude,  one  must  study  him  in  his 
sketches  rather  than  in  his  pictures.  Personally, 
I  have  never  found  a  picture  of  his  that  was  not 
overworked,  and  dry  and  brittle  in  its  surface. 
Even  the  famous  Mill  in  the  Doria  Gallery,  with 
all  its  beauty  of  composition,  has  none  of  the 
unctuous  qualities  which  are  found  in  the  works 
of  the  later  masters.  Technically,  in  colour  and 
breadth,  his  painting  was  far  behind  the  figure- 
work  of  his  day.  But  his  sketches  show  him  as  a 
giant  in  poetic  understanding  of  what  happens 
out-of-doors  under  God's  sky. 

Braun  published  reproductions  of  a  number  of 
his  sketches  which  indicate  the  charm  of  the 


Having  heard  the  book  often  spoken  of,  I  was 
able,  after  some  search,  to  secure  a  copy;  and  was 
surprised  on  looking  over  the  plates  to  find  that 
Claude  had  covered  a  range  of  subjects  so  much 
wider  than  I  had  supposed.  Besides,  I  found  that 
many  of  the  plates  suggested  closely  the  works 
of  any  number  of  artists  of  reputation  who  have 
succeeded  him — even  to  our  own  day. 


The  Liber 
Veritas 


originals;  they  were  engraved  for  the 
three  hundred  prints  that  make  the  Liber 
Veritas,  pubHshed  by  Boydell  in  1777. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  87 


So,  for  the  fun  of  the  thing,  I  began  to  put  the 
prints  before  artists  and  critics,  attributing  each 
plate  to  the  work  of  the  artist  it  resembled.  One 
print  I  would  show  as  a  Gainsborough  or  a  Con- 
stable, an  Ary  Scheffer,  a  Decamps,  a  Delacroix, 
a  Daubigny,  an  Albert  Ryder,  a  Monet,  and  of 
course  as  a  Turner  and  a  Corot.  The  imputed 
authorship  was  never  questioned.  When  disil- 
lusioned, the  amazement  of  my  victims  at  the 
fecundity  of  the  man  was  as  great  as  mine  had 
been. 

It  makes  one  think  that  he  had  felt  and  appre- 
hended almost  every  phase  of  Nature;  and  that 
our  landscape  art  ancestry  must  go  back  to  Claude 
Gelee.  After  all,  this  only  goes  to  prove  that 
similar  temperaments  must  of  necessity  be  sus- 
ceptible to  similar  stimuli.  Of  course  the  influence 
of  Claude  on  Turner  and  Corot  has  been  com- 
mented on  for  years.  Even  as  late  as  '76,  the 
editor  of  The  Edinburgh  Catalogue,  who  was  a 
critical  authority  in  his  day,  failed,  like  the  major- 
ity of  the  critics  of  his  time,  to  appreciate  the  new 
beauties  of  feeling  and  tedmical  achievement 
which  Corot  had  brought  into  being,  and  refers  to 
him  slightingly  as  a  combination  of  Claude  and 


88 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Constable,  with  a  small  personal  contribution  of 
Corot  added.  This  feeling  was  general  as  regards 
the  Barbizon  School. 

Ruskin,  who,  also,  had  a  very  feeble  interest 
in  Constable,  never  refers  to  the  Barbizon  men; 
and  the  "National  Gallery,*'  which  could  have 
had  a  wonderful  group  of  their  pictures  at  com- 
paratively no  cost,  was  until  quite  recently  with- 
out any  representation  of  this  great  movement. 

The  history  of  art  is  like  a  chain  in  which  every 
age  contributes  some  links.    The  Hobbema  joins 


Each  new  man  has  something  of  the  past;  the 
personal  note  which  he  contributes,  coming  from 
his  own  peculiar  temperament  and  environment, 
distinguishes  his  Hnk  from  the  rest  of  the  chain. 

I  saw,  at  Mr.  Lambert's,  a  little  landscape 
which  puzzled  me  greatly.  It  made  me  think  of 
Dupre,  and  yet  it  didn't  feel  like  Dupre.  I  after- 
ward learned  it  was  a  Constable  which  Dupre 
had  purchased  as  a  young  man,  and  had  always 
kept  in  his  studio,  until  sold  after  his  death.  In 
it,  I  seemed  to  find  a  connection  with  every  picture 


Contribut- 
ing Links 


the  Claude,  the  Constable  connects  with 
the  Hobbema,  the  Barbizon  with  the 
Constable,  and  so  on. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  LANDSCAPE  PAINTING  89 


Dupre  had  painted.  This  picture  had  called  his 
attention  to  a  certain  phase  of  Nature,  the  ex- 
pression of  which  he  had  made  his  life's  work ;  and 
through  it  he  had  unconsciously  carried  to  fruition 
the  passing  suggestion  of  Constable. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  closely  painters 
of  similar  aim  and  temperament  resemble  one 

another  in  their  work,  when  they  happen  ^  

Similarities 

to  select  similar  motives.  Daubigny 
occasionally  painted  something  that  is  difficult  to 
distinguish  from  a  Corot.  In  Mr.  Hearn's  collec- 
tion there  is  a  Constable  which  from  across  the 
room  might  easily  be  mistaken  for  a  Corot.  Mr. 
William  H.  Fuller  had  a  Constable — A  Misty 
Sunrise — that  might  have  passed  for  a  Turner, 
and  so  forth. 

But  all  artists  are  finally  best  known  by  the 
phases  of  Nature  which  seem  to  make  the  strongest 
personal  appeal  to  them,  and  in  which  they  are 
happiest.  The  others  appear  to  be  digressions  in 
which  they  rest  themselves. 

As  I  have  said,  and  I  think  with  reason,  all  new 
works  of  art  must  be  judged  by  their  prototypes. 
After  comparing  them  with  previous  performances, 
one  must  take  into  consideration  the  personal 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


touch,  and  the  new  qualities  that  may  enhance  or 
detract  from  their  value. 

Unfortunately,  much  of  our  criticism  insists  on 
judging  each  new  contribution  by  itself,  without 
relation  to  what  has  gone  before.  I 
confess,  I  do  not  understand  much  of 
what  is  published  as  art-criticism.  One  gets  the 
notion  that  it  is  an  effort  of  the  critic  to  depict 
his  own  pseudo-emotions,  couched  in  the  ornaments 
of  language,  rather  than  an  attempt  on  his  part 
at  any  sort  of  an  analytical  presentation.  One  is 
apt  to  feel,  in  spite  of  the  literary  ability  shown  by 
such  lucubrations,  that  it  really  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  subject;  that  it  is,  after  all,  merely  a 
"gift  of  gab, "  as  the  poet  says  in  Candida, 


EIGHTH  TALK 


Helps  and  Hindrances 

O  one  who  knows  the  sketches  of 
Claude,  comes  the  feeling  that 
nothing  better  has  been  done.  As 
I  have  pointed  out,  in  the  Liber 
Veritas  you  can  find  nearly  every  succeeding 
landscape-painter  suggested.  But  his  paintings, 
perhaps  through  being  forced  to  con- 
form to  the  demand  of  the  day,  as  some  ^^cl^^e 
think,  are  dry  and  overworked.  Any- 
how, the  sketches  reveal  the  man  better  than  his 
pictures. 

During  this  century  of  progress  (which  I  have 
suggested)  was  noted  an  ever-increasing  under- 
standing in  the  presentation  of  Nature  in  keys  of 
Hght  and  shade  differing  between  "indoor"  and 
"outdoor"  subjects.  The  traditions  and  "pal- 
ette" of  the  figure-painters,  while  true  in  their 
place,  had  continued  in  landscape-painting  where 
they  did  not  belong — and  they  were  therefore 
gradually  thrown  overboard.    Some  of  the  early 

91 


ART-TALKS  fVITH  RANGER 


Dutchmen,  such  as  Cuyp,  for  instance,  and 

Constable,  Bonington,  and  Turner  of  the  English, 

produced  paintings  you  would  not  find  fault  with 

to-day,  from  the  point  of  rendering  light. 

The  Barbizon  men,  at  times,  went  even  farther 

in  the  rendering  of  light  and  luminosity.    One  old 

habit,  the  "dark  brown  shadow,*'  was 

The  "Dark  conspicuous  fault  which  persisted  in 
Brown 

Shadow"  landscape.  Many  of  these  older  men 
studied  the  light  and  half-tones,  and 
were  content  to  let  a  shadow  remain  merely 
darkness.  To  Monet  came  the  feeling  of  Nature 
as  a  luminous  mass  of  colour.  Where  the  previous 
painters  had  only  looked  for  colour  in  the  lights  and 
half-tones,  Monet  continued  the  search  into  the 
shadows  and  found  it  also  there.  The  result  was 
that  he  and  his  followers  codified  the  fact  into  a 
theory  which  became  the  basis  of  a  "movement," 
to  be  called,  first,  the  Impressionist,  and,  later, 
the  Luminist  School. 

That  this  discovery,  or  rather  culmination  of 
previous  researches,  is  of  lasting  value,  goes  with- 
out question.  The  influence  of  the  Luminists  will 
be  felt,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  in  every 
"landscape"  of  the  future,  just  as  the  influence  of 


HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES 


the  preceding  men  was  felt  by  them,  which  is  a 
great  triumph  for  the  school  and  the  truth  it 
taught. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  the  followers  of 
this  school  got  into  trouble.  With  them  it  became 
the  thing  to  paint  every  picttire  in  the 
highest  possible  key.  They  did  not  ^he  Fault 
apprehend  that  a  low-toned  phase  of  Extremes 
Nature  painted  too  light  is  as  false  as  a 
high-keyed  phase  painted  too  dark.  Every  land- 
scape-subject occupies  a  certain  place  in  the  scale 
between  the  two  absolute  extremes  of  "dark'* 
and  "light,"  which  may  cover  a  shorter  or  longer 
gamut.  If  you  will  compare  it  with  music,  as  an 
illustration,  your  melody  will  cover  a  certain  range 
of  the  keyboard  (and  can  be  moved  up  or  down  as 
one  pleases).  It  is  possible  to  tinkle  it  high  in  the 
treble  clef  or  grumble  it  low  in  the  bass.  But  it  is 
better  in  its  proper  key. 

I  remember  this  point  was  brought  home  and 

clarified  to  me,  one  night  in  Holland,  at  a  little 

inn  at  Laren,  by  a  remark  of  Israel's.    _.  ,  , 

High  and 

Quite  a  number  of  painters  were  working     Low  Key 

there  then ;  men  from  France,  Germany, 

several  of  the  Dutchmen,  and  two  Americans. 


94 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


The  Frenchmen  were  Luminists;  some  of  the  Ger- 
mans were  dabbling  in  that  method;  a  number 
were  wabblers,  who  in  the  morning  would  paint 
a  low-toned  landscape,  and  in  the  afternoon 
something  in  the  highest  "alt."  Naturally,  the 
new  and  old  points-of-view  were  much  discussed. 
One  artist  turned  to  another  with  the  question; 
*'What  are  you  going  to  paint  to-morrow;  a  high- 
keyed  or  a  low-keyed  picture?"  Israel,  who  had 
taken  no  part  in  these  discussions,  spoke  up  mildly 
and  said:  "Gentlemen,  why  do  you  argue  about  a 
high  or  a  low  key?  Why  not  paint  it  in  the  natural 
key?" 

His  remark  was  so  illuminating  and  suggestive 
that  it  settled  the  point  for  me,  personally,  then 
and  ever  since.  Another  curious  thing  happened: 
in  a  few  years  the  school  which  was  supposed  to 
defy  conventions  had  created  conventions  more 
rigid  than  those  of  any  school  that  had  gone  before. 
As  a  sine  qua  non,  certain  colours  were  insisted  on 
with  which  to  represent  light.  Purple  was  always 
shadow — although  we  knew  then,  and  know  now, 
that  all  shadows  are  not  purple.  Another  rule  was 
that  every  landscape  must  be  painted  directly 
from  Nature,  and  just  as  it  was ;  if  a  telegraph  pole 


HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES 


came  in  the  centre  of  the  subject  you  must  put  it 
in. 

Before  this  time,  the  great  landscapes  of  the 
world  were  painted  in  studios;  they  were  the 
refined  result  of  long  and  ardent  toil  out-of-doors. 
Now  think  what  this  Luminist  "  rule  "  presupposes ! 
First,  the  recurring  of  days  with  precisely  the  same 
atmospheric  effect;  second,  a  re-creating  of  the 
same  mental  attitude  toward  the  subject  on  the 
part  of  the  artist ;  third,  the  painting  of  the  com- 
position exactly  as  it  is  found  in  Nature.  If  there 
be  any  divergence  from  these  rules,  the  value  is 
nil. 

Apparently  there  can  be  no  gain  without  some 
loss;  and  the  broken  touch  of  the  Luminist  gives 
air  and  great  suggestiveness ;  but  one  must 
pay  for  this  in  the  loss  of  subtle  line  and  colour. 
If  it  were  only  possible  to  paint  a  picture 
"from  Nature,"  then  the  deep-toned  phases  of 
Nature  such  as  Moonlights^  Afterglows  of  Sun- 
set, NocturneSy  and  Deep  Wood-Interiors,  would 
be  impossible.  Yet,  despite  all  these  foolish 
and  abandoned  idiosyncrasies,  the  school  has 
contributed  greatly  to  the  advancement  of 
landscape-painting. 


96  ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


The  rational  consideration  of  key  and  apprehen- 
sion of  colour  in  shadows  are  great  contributions 
to  the  art  of  landscape-painting;  and 

The  Swing  these  principles  can  be  used  by  aTonalist 

of  the  f  J 

Pendulum       well  as  by  a  professed  Luminist.  The 

right  equation  between  this  and  other 
schools  will  be  found.  There  is  always  a  swing  of 
the  artistic  pendulum  between  the  extremes  of 
dry,  stilted,  academic  perfection  on  the  one  hand, 
and  emotional  incoherency  on  the  other.  In  the 
eighties,  it  was  thought  that  iconoclasm  had,  with 
Monet  and  Manet,  gone  to  the  limit ;  but  to-day  the 
''ultra  advanced"  call  Monet  and  Manet  "old- 
hats";  and  the  extreme  swing  is  marked  by  the 
Cubists"  and  "Futurists." 

No  movement  ever  captured  the  world  as  did 
the  Luminist  movement  early  in  the  nineties. 
England,  Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  even  a  large 
group  of  Hollanders  joined  the  procession;  all 
were  waving  banners  and  flying  flags.  And  in 
America  it  seemed  as  though  the  Luminists  were 
as  numerous  as  converts  at  a  religious  "Revival. " 

I  remember  an  exhibition  of  the  Society  of 
American  Artists  in  which  there  was  nothing  shown 
except  extreme  luministic  pictures.    Not  a  picture 


HELPS  AND  HINDRANCES  97 


could  pass  the  jury  except  those  which  conformed 
absolutely  to  this  standard;  and  the 
rooms,  as  one  looked  around,  with  purple  Mim^ry 
and  lilac-colour  in  each  and  every  frame, 
suggested  nothing  so  much  as  an  opening" 

of  spring  millinery. 
7 


NINTH  TALHL 


Retrospection 

OOKING  back  at  the  time  I  came  to 
New  York,  I  can  see  that  it  was  then 
really  a  provincial  town.  Generally 
speaking,  we  were  in  a  stage  which 
might  be  described  as  innocent  of  art.  The  great 
flow  of  public  appreciation  was  in  the  direction 
of  picttires  that  were  frankly  imitative. 
New^York  '^^^  reputation  that  stood  the  highest 
was  Meissonier's.  Very  large  prices 
also  were  paid  for  work  by  such  men  as  Domingo, 
Vibert,  and  Gerome.  The  people  could  all  appre- 
ciate the  craftsmanship  in  these  pictures,  and  feel 
the  imitative  truth  of  their  superficial  qualities, 
while  they  missed  the  message  in  the  more  poetic 
things. 

I  think  that,  in  their  own  hearts,  the  dealers  of 
that  period  understood  and  liked  what  they 
called  the  ''high  finish"  picture  better  than  the 
works  of  the  other  men  whose  reputation  had 
become  so  great  that  their  pictures  were  beginning 

98 


RETROSPECTION 


99 


to  sell  themselves.  Both  Mr.  Avery  and  Mr. 
Schaus  certainly  felt  that  way  at  the  bottom  of 
their  hearts.  For  I  recollect  as  a  boy  wandering 
about  their  galleries,  which  endorsed  both  kinds, 
and  wondering  how  one  could  like  equally  well 
pictures  that  were  as  diametrically  opposite  as  the 
poles. 

After  a  while,  I  noticed  that  the  pictures  which 

both  these  dealers  recommended  to  their  patrons, 

as  the  finest  examples  of  the  Barbizon 

work,  were  those  most  highly  finished;  The  "High 

Fmish" 

those  in  which  the  detail  had  been  picture 
carried  out  unusually  far,  thus  ap- 
proximating nearer  the  technic  of  the  "high 
finish"  picture,  under  which  name  were  known 
such  paintings  as  those  by  Meissonier,  Gerome, 
and  Knaus,  who  were  great  favourites  at  that 
time. 

I  knew  one  collector  who  had  many  Barbizon 
pictures  selected  by  Mr.  Schaus,  who  had  carte 
blanche  to  get  the  finest  examples  of  this  school 
possible.  And  his  selections,  which  in  some  cases 
required  years  to  secure,  were  just  such  examples 
as  met  these  requirements.  That  is  to  say,  they 
were  the  rather  early  and  overfinished  canvases 


loo         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


that  missed  both  the  freedom  and  charm  that  go 
with  their  riper  things. 

It  seems  curious  now,  as  one  looks  back,  that 
pictures  of  the  academic  type  of  the  men  men- 
tioned, and  others,  as  well  as  the  Salon 
pictures  of  the  plein  airists,  should  have 
Oddities  been  received  with  so  much  favour,  and 
that  they  should  have  brought  higher 
prices  than  the  work  of  the  Barbizon  painters 
which  has  justly  become  so  valuable. 

I  remember  when  The  Potato  Gatherers,  by  an 
artist  named  Hagborg,  received  as  much  adulation 
as,  and  perhaps  even  more  than,  the  Millets  which 
came  into  the  market  at  the  same  period.  Hag- 
borg was  regarded  by  many  as  an  artist  who,  while 
doing  the  same  sort  of  subjects  as  Millet,  had  more 
realism  and  charm. 

The  Potato  Gatherers  was  purchased  by  Mr. 
Powers,  known  as  the  founder  of  the  Powers  Art 
Gallery  of  Rochester.  This  gallery  was  on  the  top 
floor  of  a  business  building,  which  was  the  show- 
building  of  Rochester  at  that  time;  and  visitors 
to  the  gallery  were  admitted  on  the  payment 
of  a  fee. 

Mr.  Powers  eventually  acquired,  amongst  a 


RETROSPECTION 


great  mass  of  truck,  a  few  good  things  which  were 
undoubtedly  of  value  to  Western  New  York. 
When  I  knew  the  gallery,  as  a  boy,  the  bulk  of  the 
stuff  was  badly  painted  biblical  subjects  done  by 
itinerant  artists ;  together  with  landscape  and  figure 
subjects  purchased  from  peddlers  who  at  that 
time  toured  the  country  with  collections  of  pic- 
tures painted  for  the  trade  at  so  much  a  dozen, 
and  commercially  known  as  "Shanghaighs.** 

After  Mr.  Powers's  death,  a  part  of  the  collec- 
tion, which  represented  his  later  and  better  pur- 
chases, was  brought  to  New  York  and  dispersed. 
The  Hagborg  was  among  the  number.  But,  by 
this  time,  the  public  taste  had  so  far  advanced  that 
it  was  hardly  noticed,  and  sold  for  a  trifle. 

Many  can  recall  the  sensation  Munkaczy,  the 
Hungarian  artist,  made  with  his  Christ  Before 
Pilate:  an  enormous  canvas  of  the  Salon  type 
which  was  shown  in  a  store  on  Twenty- third  Street, 
the  walls  of  which  were  draped  with  dark  hangings. 
To  augment  the  effect,  lights  were  ttuned  low  and 
the  picture  was  illuminated  with  a  blaze  of  light 
from  special  reflectors.  I  recall  paying  my  quar- 
ter and  groping  my  way  to  one  of  the  seats  which 
were  arranged  in  theatre  fashion,  and  listening  to  a 


I02         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


gentleman  who  hourly  ascended  the  platform  and 
delivered  a  lecture  on  the  picture.  Mimkaczy 
at  that  time  had  a  tremendous  vogue  among 
collectors. 

My  friend,  Charles  Davis,  remembers  seeing 
the  Christ  Before  Pilate  in  Paris,  where  it  had  been 


daily  in  front  of  the  picture.  This  old  mercenary 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  artists  who  finally 
drew  from  him  an  admission  that  his  attitude  of 
woe  was  paid  for. 

George  Clairin  was  another  painter  of  this 
period  who  made  a  great  sensation.  Some  of  us 
will  remember  how  we  turned  out  to  see  the  pic- 
ture of  Carolus  Duran's  sister-in-law,  the  erstwhile 
famous  rider  in  a  Parisian  circus. 

Considerably  later,  Verestchagin,  the  Russian 
painter  of  The  Horrors  of  War  series,  made  the 
same  sort  of  sensation  that  SoroUa  has  accom- 
plished at  the  present  time.  Verestchagin 's  pic- 
tures, after  touring  Europe,  were  brought  to 
America,  and  finally  sold  by  the  American  Art 
Association.    I  have  seen  some  of  these  Verest- 


Mercenary 
Woe 


exhibited  in  the  same  manner  as  it  was 
in  New  York,  except  that  the  manage- 
ment there  employed  an  old  man  to  weep 


RETROSPECTION 


103 


chagins  recently  in  Mr.  Catholina  Lambert*s 
collection;  and  I  feel  sure  that  to-day  Mr. 
Lambert  would  not  repeat  the  purchase. 

These  names,  and  hosts  of  others  which  you 
will  only  recall  by  looking  over  the  Salon  cata- 
logues of  that  period,  represent  some  phases  of 
ephemeral  art — and  ephemeral  art,  like  a  bub- 
bling spring,  never  seems  to  run  dry. 

One  trouble  was  that,  owing  to  the  dearth  of 
old  masters  in  this  country,  we  were  practically 
without  standards  of  comparison.  And,  indeed, 
there  were  comparatively  few  persons  who  had 
become  acquainted  with  them  on  the  other  side. 

I  remember  well  the  sensation  made  when  Mr. 
Havemeyer  purchased  from  Mr.  Schaus  The 
Gilder  by  Rembrandt  at  the  enormous  sum,  it  was 
whispered,  of  $80,000.  Since  that  time  America 
has  acquired  Rembrandts  as  well  as  hundreds  of 
other  masters.  At  present,  according  to  Dr.  Bode, 
more  than  half  of  the  Rembrandts  are  owned  in 
this  country.  In  this,  as  in  other  respects,  the 
Metropolitan  has  certainly  performed  great  public 
service;  and  too  much  praise  cannot  be  given  for 
the  work  it  has  done  and  is  doing  in  the  cause  of 
art. 


104         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


In  the  old  days,  we  followed  usually  our  own 

sweet  judgment.    A  common  remark,  in  which  the 

utterers  took  great  pride,  was:  "I  don't 

Hart's  know  much  about  art ;  but  I  know  what 
Caustic 

•Wit  I  like.'     Perhaps  the  best  answer  to 

this  was  made  by  William  Hart,  who  at 
the  time  was  our  leading  cattle-painter.  He  still 
spoke  with  a  broad  Scotch  accent,  and  was  rather 
feared  by  most  of  the  artists  for  his  dry  and  caustic 
wit.  His  answer,  and  it  was  given  to  a  young 
lady,  was:  "My  dear  child,  dinna  say  that! 
Even  the  beasts  of  the  fields  know  what  they  like. " 
I  have  never  heard  the  remark  since  without 
thinking  of  Hart,  and  being  tempted  to  plagiarise. 


TENTH  TALK 


Personal  MetKods 

RDINARILY,  the  only  excuse  for  a 
description  of  personal  methods  is 
that  it  may  be  a  matter  of  curios- 
ity, or  a  service,  to  some  one  in  the 
futiire.  For  I  remember  how  often  I  wished  some 
of  the  painters  of  the  past,  whose  talks  on  art 
have  done  so  much  for  me,  had  incorporated  in 
them  some  of  their  personal  methods,  and  reasons 
for  the  same,  instead  of  assuming  that  these  must 
be  known.  It  might  have  saved  me  many  experi- 
ments which  took  time  and  turned  out  badly. 
For,  if  a  man's  work  stands  up,  and  remains  in  fine 
condition  after  a  long  lapse  of  time — or  if,  on  the 
contrary,  it  goes  to  pieces — a  knowledge  of  his 
methods  would  be  valuable  in  showing  us 
what  road  to  follow  or  what  morass  to  avoid. 

However,  I  needn't  apologise  for  inflicting 
"shop-talk,"  I  presume,  when  that  seems  to  be 
what  you  want,  and  what  a  painter  will  under- 
stand.   Remember !    I  am  not  urging  my  method. 

105 


io6         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


I  have  no  claims  to  make  for  its  excellence  or 
originality.  It  is,  I  believe,  simply  the  old  with 
nothing  new  added  that  I  can  discover ;  it  is  only  a 
personal  adaptation  of  methods  that  have  been 
used  for  hundreds  of  years. 

The  only  point  on  which  I  feel  that  I  may  have 
accumulated  some  merit  is  that  I  dug  it  out  for 
myself  at  a  time  when  it  had  fallen  into  disuse. 
I  recall  now  with  amusement  how  often  a  bit  of 
technic  which  I  had  evolved  and  thought  original 
I  afterward  foimd  had  been  used  by  men  hundreds 
of  years  before  me. 

My  present  practice,  which  I  have  seen  no 
reason  to  change  for  a  good  many  years,  is  what  I 
will  try  to  have  you  put  down.  I  wish  to  avoid  as 
much  as  possible  making  it  read  like  a  cooking- 
recipe. 

The  first  thing  is  the  canvas.  That  I  want  as 
smooth  as  possible,  and  with  a  white  surface.  I 

say  smooth,  because  many  experiments, 
cSivas  which  some  of  my  canvases  were 

loaded  with  different  colours  or  heavy 
with  brush-marks,  turned  out  an  embarrassment. 
The  loaded  canvas  I  hoped  would  give  an  appear- 
ance of  vigour.    But  the  big,  vigorous  brush- 


PERSONAL  METHODS 


marks  of  the  loading  usually  cropped  up  in  the 
picture  at  the  wrong  place. 

And  let  me  say  here  that  texture,  which  is  the 
factor  in  art  contributed  by  Titian,  has  played 
since  his  time  a  very  important  part  in  painting. 

The  smooth  canvas  gave  me  the  surface  which 
corresponded  closest  with  that  of  a  panel.  This 
surface  I  had  foimd  very  agreeable  to  paint  on; 
besides,  it  had  the  prestige  of  giving  satisfaction 
during  centuries  of  usage.  A  smooth  surface  also 
makes  it  possible  to  preserve  the  textures  created 
by  the  brush  from  the  very  start ;  therefore  you  do 
not  waste  time  in  filling  up  the  textures  existing 
in  coarser  canvas.  A  panel  gives  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  surface  to  paint  on ;  but  I  confess  to  a 
personal  predilection  for  the  elastic  give  of  a  can- 
vas over  the  unyielding  surface  of  wood. 

My  next  step  is  to  cover  the  whole  canvas  with 
a  transparent  glaze  of  yellow,  dissolved  in  a 
medium  of  mastic  varnish,  not  too  thick. 
Thirty  years  ago  or  more  I  experimented  "^oiaze 
with  many  mediums,  and  learned  that 
the  same  result  can  be  accomplished  with  any  mix- 
ture of  any  gum  and  any  solvent.  I  finally  settled 
upon  mastic  varnish  for  my  own  particular  use, 


io8         ART -TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


having  read  a  description  of  the  medium  used  by 
Richard  Wilson  in  painting — casually  referred  to  in 
his  Life. "  It  is  said  that  Wilson  used  a  medium 
of  mastic  varnish  thinned  with  a  little  turpentine, 
and  a  few  drops  of  linseed  oil  added.  Evidently, 
the  oil  was  added  to  make  the  varnish  slower  in 
drying.  I  did  not  use  the  oil,  for  I  assumed  that 
the  surplusage  of  oil  incorporated  in  tube-colours 
would  amply  replace  Wilson's  "few  drops.'* 
Another  reason  for  adopting  this  mediimi  was  the 
fact  that  Wilson's  pictures  had  stood  the  test  of 
time  in  a  very  satisfactory  manner;  moreover, 
I  could  not  recall,  and  cannot  now,  any  examples  of 
his  work  that  have  gone  to  pieces  as  have,  during 
the  same  and  later  periods,  so  many  pictures  by 
other  men  whose  methods  were  not  so  fortunate. 
I  wanted  to  get  the  question  of  medium  settled 
for  my  personal  use.  For  I  realised  that  all 
such  matters  must  be  only  the  servant  of 
the  painter  and  not  his  master;  so  that,  when 
once  satisfactorily  solved,  his  mind  would  be 
free. 

Now  into  this  yellow  glaze — and  I  use  yellow 
because  it  is  the  colour  most  suggestive  of  sunlight 
— I  place  my  composition,  washed  and  rubbed  in 


PERSONAL  METHODS  109 


with  vigorous  primaries.  Then  I  begin  to  paint 
with  a  full  brush,  approaching  the  final  effect 
desired  as  closely  as  possible. 

I  keep  on  refining  colour  and  form  day  by  day 
until  my  unhappy  experience  usually  reveals  an 
overworked  picture;  and  I  find  I  have  lost  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  start,  and  have  brought  both 
the  picture  and  myself  to  a  thoroughly  tired 
condition.  This  means  that  sooner  or  later  the 
canvas  must  be  enveloped  in  a  fresh  bath  of 
colour,  and  a  fresh  start  be  made.  And  this 
same  process  must  be  repeated  imtil  success  has 
come. 

Of  course  I  assume  you  understand  that  I  am 
still  painting  the  same  subject  which  exists  in  the 
pencil  sketch  I  am  working  from,  to- 
gether with  the  assistance  of  studies 
^  Sketch 

relating  to  the  subject,  and  which  I  may 
refer  to  from  time  to  time  to  refresh  my  memory. 
The  subject,  however,  which  contains  the  emotion 
which  impelled  the  picture  is  contained  in  the 
pencil  sketch ;  this  is  the  thing  that  brings  back  the 
memory  of  the  moment  in  which  it  was  made,  and 
is,  therefore,  the  most  important  element  of  the 
picture. 


no         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


My  conception  of  a  great  picture,  which  I  am 
still  ardently  trying  to  realise,  is  one  that  has  the 
Ideal  enthusiasm,  the  vigour  and  spontaneity 
of  a  sketch,  with  the  ripeness  of  thought 
and  colour,  together  with  the  subtlety  that  only 
comes  from  much  labour.  The  idea  has  never 
been  better  expressed  than  by  Pilkington  who,  in 
speaking  of  one  of  the  great  Italians,  said:  "His 
practice  was  to  finish  his  pictures  with  infinite 
care  and  then  to  disguise  the  labour  at  the  end 
with  a  few  bold  touches." 

Oddly  enough,  none  of  the  labour  involved  in 
this  repetition  of  painting  in  and  out  is  really  lost. 
The  surfaces  change,  but  the  effect  of  that  which 
is  covered  up,  in  some  intangible  manner,  still 
remains. 

My  palette,  which  orginally  contained  a  large 
variety  of  pigments,  kept  on  reducing  itself  almost 
unconsciously  until,   during  the  last 

Palette 

few  years,  it  holds  nothing  but  the  three 
primaries  and  a  black  and  a  white. 

I  feel  supported  in  my  practice  by  the  wisdom 
in  a  remark  made  by  one  of  the  old  writers  to  the 
effect  that  the  true  colourist  uses  very  few  colours. 
Reynolds  refers  to  the  same  thing  incidentally  in 


PERSONAL  METHODS 


one  of  his  lectures  to  the  students  of  the  Royal 
Academy.  He  says:  "The  Greeks  were  probably 
as  eminent  in  painting  as  in  sculpture,  for  Apelles 
at  least  had  discovered  the  secret  of  colour,  which 
is  the  use  of  few  pigments. " 

My  palette,  in  detail,  consists  of  cadmium  yel- 
low— usually  two  shades — dark  and  medium; 
vermilion,  as  the  only  red;  and  mineral  blue, 
which  has  the  virtues  of  Prussian  and  Antwerp 
without  some  of  their  objectionable  qualities, 
besides  having  a  good  record  from  its  history  in 
old  pictures.  An  ivory -black  and  flake- white 
complete  the  list. 

Sometimes,  in  case  the  subject  is  a  rich  autumn, 
I  find  burnt  sienna  an  agreeable  addition.  And 
also  I  have  occasionally  used  gamboge,  Indian 
yellow,  yellow  lake,  &c.,  as  glazes.  These  colours, 
while  classed  as  fugitive,  are  perfectly  permanent 
when  locked  up  in  varnish.  As  time  goes  on,  I 
find  myself  using  fewer  of  these  colours,  since  I 
can  get  about  the  same  results  with  cadmium 
modified  with  the  other  colours. 

I  ventured  to  replace  the  ochres  with  cadmium, 
and  the  light  reds  with  vermilion.  For  the  more 
luminous  scale  in  which  we  see  landscape  to-day 


112         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


seems  to  demand  a  higher  primary  than  is  afforded 

by  yellow  ochre.    But  if  my  work  dealt  with  the 

problems  of  figure,  especially  with  interior  lighting, 

I  should  stick  to  the  old  palette  of  the  ochres  and 

corresponding  reds. 

One  advantage  that  comes  from  the  use  of  a 

simple  palette  is  in  the  chemical  structure  of  a 

picture,  which  remains  the  same  in  every 

Advantage  part ;  chemical  reaction  is  minimised,  and 

of  the  whatever  change  may  occur  from  the 
Simple 

Palette  action  of  one  pigment  on  another  will  be 
uniform.  Furthermore,  the  result  will 
be  a  harmony  impossible  to  a  picture  less  homo- 
geneous. An  advantage  gained  in  using  the  same 
varnish  as  a  medium  and  as  a  final  varnish  is  the 
possibility  of  working  into  it  at  any  stage  without 
fear  of  disaster. 

If  a  picture  is  painted  in  oil,  or  other  medium, 
one  must  wait  until  it  is  thoroughly  hard  before 
attempting  to  varnish,  as  cracks  are 

Cracks 

almost  certain  to  appear  otherwise. 
Personally,  I  have  not  had  a  canvas  go  wrong  for 
many  years;  and  my  early  disasters  were  due  to 
errors  which  I  understand  now.  The  last  serious 
trouble  I  had  came  about  in  this  way:  I  had  been 


PERSONAL  METHODS  113 

having  my  colourman  cover  my  canvases  with  a 
smooth  coat  of  white  lead ;  then  I  let  them  dry  for 
a  period  of  three  months  before  taking  them  to  the 
country.  This  time  I  ordered  them  as  usual,  but 
with  a  panel  of  wood  inserted  in  the  back  of  the 
stretcher.  Inside  a  week  after  I  had  started 
to  paint  on  them  I  found  the  surface  crack- 
ing. On  investigation  it  appeared  that  the 
white  surface  had  not  thoroughly  dried.  The 
added  panels  at  the  back  had  prevented  the 
usual  evaporation  from  that  side.  The  fresh 
paint  on  top  was  naturally  pulling  one  way 
and  the  partly  dried  paint  at  the  bottom  was 
pulling  another;  and  of  course  something  had 
to  give  way.  I  hung  those  canvases  in  the 
chimney-place  of  the  hotel  kitchen,  and  in 
about  two  weeks  had  them  hard  enough  to 
give  me  no  more  trouble.  But  I  remembered  the 
lesson. 

One  thing  to  bear  in  mind  in  the  use  of  varnish, 
especially  in  the  final  varnishing,  is  to  use  it  thin. 
Two  coats  of  thin  varnish  are  just  as 
effective  and  much  safer  than  one  thick  vamish 
coat. 

Very  often  one  hears  the  remark :  ''The  pigments 


114         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


of  the  old  painters  were  superior  to  those  of  the 

present  day. "    I  can't  find  any  foundation  in  fact 

for  the  statement,  unless  you  construe  it 

Pigments  of  admission  of  present-day  weak- 

the  Old  ^  ^ 

Painters     ness.    The  ochres  are  still  dug  from  the 

same   old  mines;  many  of  the  other 

colours  are  obtained  from  the  same  old  sources. 

We  have  yellows  much  superior  in  brilliancy  and 

lasting-quality  to  those  of  the  old  masters.  Most 

of  the  bright  yellows  which  we  find  in  their  pictures 

were  got  by  the  glazing  of  white  with  gamboge, 

orpiment,  yellow  lake,  or  kindred  colours.  The 

gold  decorations  and  backgroimds  which  we 

find  in  most  of  the  early   pictures  are  really 

tinfoil  glazed  with   gamboge.    And  the  same 

practice  is  used  by  decorators  of  to-day,  except 

that  they  have  substituted  aluminum  leaf  for 

tinfoil. 

Speaking  of  decorators!    I  had  a  curious  ex- 
perience which  revealed  to  me  that,  while  there 
had  been  a  gap  in  the  continuity  of  the 
Artists       old  practices  of  painting  by  artists,  there 
Artisans  heen  no  such  break  in  method  and 

tradition  of  the  artisan  painters.  And 
we  might  as  well  admit  here  that  the  technic  of 


PERSONAL  METHODS  115 


the  artist  and  journeyman  painter  is  basically  the 
same,  and  goes  back  to  a  common  ancestry. 

I  was  having  the  ceiling  of  my  studio  tinted, 
and  as  the  walls  were  a  rich  brown  velvet,  I  wanted 
a  deep  ivory  tone  to  harmonise.  I  knew  that  no 
paint  could  be  mixed  in  a  bucket  to  give  the  desired 
tone.  So  I  ordered  the  work  delayed  until  my 
arrival  in  the  morning.  I  was  however  a  little 
late,  and  found  the  work  well  started,  and  the 
ceiling  nearly  covered  with  a  coat  of  white.  As  it 
was  just  what  I  should  have  ordered,  I  was  much 
surprised  and  very  curious,  and  called  the  fore- 
man over  for  a  talk.  "How  is  this?"  I  inquired. 
''You  know  I  wanted  the  ceiling  a  deep  ivory  tone 
to  blend  with  the  wall."  He  replied:  "Yes,  Mr. 
Ranger,  I  know  that ;  but  I  couldn't  get  the  colour 
live  enough  [a  good  expression]  if  I  painted  it. 
So,  on  this  white  I  am  going  to  glaze  the  colour 
when  it  gets  dry."  I  was  amazed;  for  I  found 
that  this  man  knew  and  used  in  his  daily  work, 
methods  which  I  had  been  years  in  acquiring,  and 
which  I  fancied  I  had  rediscovered. 

Really,  the  explanation  is  a  simple  one.  The 
cruder  craftsman  had  succeeded  to  a  tradition  of 
sound,  prudent  methods;  he  had  remained  secure 


ii6         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


and  untouched  by  such  things  as  new  schools  which 
broke  the  tradition  among  artists. 

This  may  seem  to  be  putting  the  artist  too  much 
on  the  level  with  the  craftsman.  But  I  have  no 
sensitiveness  on  this  point.  A  great  artist  must 
be,  first  of  all,  a  craftsman,  and  a  master-crafts- 
man at  that.  Then  that  side  of  him  sinks  into 
insignificance,  since  he  uses  it  as  an  instrument 
with  which  to  express  his  ideas.  It  is  as  a  violin 
on  which  he  plays  his  melody . 

To  sum  up,  one  would  say,  every  great  picture 
in  the  world,  up  to  the  present  at  least,  has  been 
painted  with  the  use  of  glazes  and  medi- 
Additional  ^^is.  This  use  of  glazes  and  mediums 
is  not  a  trick,  but  an  addition  to  the 
painter's  technic  that  increases  the  difficulties 
instead  of  lessening  them.  The  only  reward  one 
has  for  embarking  on  this  sea  of  difficulties  is  the 
possibility  of  mastering  an  additional  power  of 
technical  expression.  To  one  whose  ambition  it  is 
to  challenge  as  far  as  he  may  be  able  the  works  of 
the  older  masters,  the  laboiu"  involved  will  be  one 
of  love.  I  do  not  see  how  one  can  acquire  the 
tonal  expression  of  a  subject  by  any  other  means. 

No  insistence  is  intended  on  the  use  of  any  par- 


PERSONAL  METHODS  117 


ticular  pigments  or  mediums.  The  basic  principle 
is  so  elastic  that  it  can  be  made  to  suit  any  in- 
dividual requirement.  And  this  is  exactly  the 
quality  a  good  method  should  possess. 

I  am  saying  this  only  to  those  whose  tempera- 
ment and  predilections  incline  them  this  way.  I 
realise  that  the  tonal  is,  and  will  continue  to  be, 
numerically  speaking,  the  smallest  form  of  art- 
expression. 


ELEVENTH  TALIl 


Restoration  of  Pictures 

HE  change  of  methods  in  the  art  of 
painting  from  the  old  to  the  Pre- 
mier Coup  and  succeeding  schools 
produced  strange  effects  in  our  pro- 
fession. The  full  force  of  some  of  these  changes  is 
painfully  obvious  to-day.  Among  others  I  might 
mention  the  odd  fact  that  we  are  pro- 
M^o?  ducing  no  painters,  or  at  least  very  few, 
Produce  who  have  the  skill  and  knowledge  of 
Effects^  methods  used  by  the  older  painters  that 
render  them  capable  of  being  efficient 
restorers  of  damaged  qualities  in  paintings. 

There  was  a  time  when  a  small  percentage  of 
men  trained  in  the  earlier  methods,  who  for  one 
reason  or  some  other,  did  not  follow  the  creative 
side  of  their  art,  instead  often  took  to  copying  in 
the  museums,  or  to  picture  restoring.  But  to-day 
there  are  none  trained  in  the  old  traditional 
technic. 

Il8 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES  119 

Every  painting,  unfortunately,  must  from  time 
to  time  receive  attention  or  perish.  The  canvas 
may  give  out,  and  reHning  become 
necessary;  the  varnish  may  go  wrong,  ^^R^p^^^ 
and  need  removing  and  renewing;  or  a 
thousand  and  one  things  may  happen  to  it  through 
accident  or  neglect.  Then  comes  the  art  of  the 
restorer.  If  he  be  worthy  the  name,  he  must  be 
able  to  decide  how  it  was  painted,  and  what 
methods  are  safe  to  use  in  making  the  needful 
restoration.  Above  all,  he  must  not  take  any- 
thing from  the  picture,  especially  in  the  way  of 
glazes;  and  he  must  do  no  repainting  himself, 
except  where  accident  or  neglect  has  made  it 
absolutely  imperative. 

At  present,  the  world  is  suffering  from  an 
epidemic  of  stupid  restoring  that  would  make  the 
artists  turn  in  their  graves  if  they  could 
know  what  was  befalling  their  children.  Epidemic 
A  large  percentage  of  the  Barbizon  stupidity 
pictures,  coming  now  from  the  other 
continent,  are  what  we  call  stripped.  That  is  to 
say,  the  final  glazes  which  Corot,  Rousseau,  and 
the  others  used  have  been  removed.  Thus  a 
delicate  tint,  either  washed  on  before  the  final 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


varnishing,  or  else  a  little  colour  dissolved  in  the 
varnish  itself,  has  been  destroyed.  These  glazes 
were  intended  to  modify  the  extremes  of  colour, 
and  to  bind  the  picture  together  in  one  harmonious 
whole.  The  method  of  these  journeymen  restor- 
ers is  to  take  some  powerful  solvent,  like  alcohol, 
and  strip  the  varnish  off  the  picture,  as  you  might 
say,  to  the  bone.  Then,  not  knowing  how  to  put 
back  the  glazes  which  they  have  destroyed,  they 
put  a  fresh  coat  of  varnish  over  their  crime.  After 
this,  they  send  the  poor  denuded  thing  back  into 
the  world  as  repulsive  looking  as  a  person  with  the 
skin  carefully  removed. 

Even  our  musetims  are  sufferers.  In  the 
Metropolitan,  the  big  Rousseau  in  the  Catherine 
Skinned  Wolfe  room  was  originally  a  very  late 
Afternoon  with  a  warm  sky — almost  a 
Sunset,  Some  time  before  the  sale  it  was  "re- 
stored" or  "cleaned "  by  an  "artist "  who  cleaned  it 
so  thoroughly  with  a  solvent  that  the  sim  set 
never  to  rise  again.  It  is  now  a  china-blue  sky 
with  white  clouds.  If  one  wants  to  see  what  the 
picture  looked  like,  one  must  imagine  the  previous 
colour,  or  look  at  it  through  a  piece  of  delicately 
tinted  amber  glass.    The  Grand  Canals  Venice, 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES 


from  the  Vanderbilt  Collection,  has  also  been 
denuded.  A  slight  suspicion  of  the  original  colour 
remains  in  a  few  places.  I  believe  the  original 
colour  may  have  been  nearly  the  same  as  that 
of  a  Turner  in  the  same  museum,  The  Fountain 
of  Love, 

No  doubt  all  remember  the  howl  raised  fol- 
lowing the  cleaning  of  the  Rubens'  Holy  Family, 
The  restorer,  succeeded  not  only  in  cleaning  the 
charm  from  the  picture,  but  he  managed  also 
to  make  it  appear  that  Rubens  performed  the 
incongruous  stunt  of  painting  two  periods  of  the 
day  in  the  same  picture.  It  is  now  A  Grey  Day 
in  the  upper  part  of  the  sky,  and  A  Sunset  in  the 
lower. 

I  imderstand  that  certain  public  collections 

abroad  are  suffering  in  the  same  way — ^in  many 

instances,  irreparably.    In  the  flurry 

that  ensued  over  the  unfortunate  Rubens  Sir 

Purdon 

of  the  Metropolitan,  Sir  Purdon  Clark  clark 
took  a  position  which  pleased  me  very 
much.  He  said  that  such  a  thing  could  not  have 
happened  at  the  South  Kensington ;  that  when  they 
had  a  pictiire  cleaned,  the  work  was  always  in 
charge  of  some  one  in  authority  who  had  positive 


122         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


instructions  to  prevent  its  being  treated  with 
solvents. 

I  trust  that  no  one  will  ever  treat  any  of  my 
pictures  with  solvents,  or  remove  anything  but  the 
surface-varnish.  And,  as  the  varnish  is  mastic, 
there  shotdd  be  no  necessity  of  using  alcohol  or 
any  other  solvent. 

Where  the  restorers  of  the  future  are  coming 
from  is  hard  to  say.  But,  at  present,  it  is  cer- 
tainly the  duty  of  artists  of  all  countries 
A  Duty  of  to  conserve  and  guard  as  well  as  they 
Artists  of  public  pictures  from  damage  of 

Countries  this  sort.  For  the  worst  enemy  of  these 
pictures  is  the  ignorant  restorer.  The 
evil  he  works  is  more  thorough  than  that  of  time 
and  far  worse  than  flame. 

I  was  shown  only  the  other  day  two  fine  Innesses 
that  had  been  stripped  by  the  ruthless  hands  of 
this  ilk  of  many  of  their  sumptuous  glazes.  In  this 
instance,  however,  the  damage  was  largely  super- 
ficial and  might  have  been  easily  repaired.  But 
think  of  the  stupidity  and  colossal  callousness  of 
the  man  who  skinned  the  canvases  of  their  charm 
and  made  no  effort  to  restore  it ! 

I  think  that  the  work  of  restoring  should  be 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES 


officially  directed  by  competent  authority.  The 
mechanical  part  of  the  work,  such  as  relining, 
transferring,  removing  varnishes,  &c., 
should  be  done  by  one  who  has  thorough  geftion 
knowledge  of,  and  continual  practice  in, 
these  processes.  Such  a  man  soon  becomes  more 
adept  in  the  art  than  opportunity  permits  the 
painter  to  be.  But,  such  parts  of  the  work  which 
call  for  a  higher  artistic  sense,  such  as  reglazing, 
retouching,  &c.,  should  be  done  only  under  the 
supervision  of  the  best  available  artist  of  the  school 
to  which  the  picture  is  closest  related.  I  am 
confident  that  no  artist  would  withhold  his  services 
from  such  a  worthy  cause. 

It  is  only  just  to  state  that  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  is  not  responsible  for  the  damage  done 
to  the  Rousseau  and  Turner.  This  happened 
before  the  museum  got  possession  of  them.  And 
the  gentleman  who  damaged  the  Rubens*  Holy 
Family  is  no  longer  with  us. 

The  Boston  Museum  has  also  had  its  misfor- 
tunes. Turner's  Slave  Ship,  which  I  knew  as  a  boy 

as  a  sumptuous  and  somewhat  lurid  „ 

^  ^  Turner's 

piece  of  colour,  is  now  an  incongruity  "Slave 
which  sets  your  teeth  on  edge.  ^^^^  " 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Turner's  later  method,  which  is  well  shown  in  this 
picture,  was  to  use  spots  of  colour  cruder  and  more 
intense  than  he  intended  them  to  remain.  Likewise , 
the  lights  were  always  whiter  than  wanted.  At  the 
final  stage,  he  would  cover  the  canvas  with  some  rich 
glazes,  thereby  reducing  the  contrast  and  also  the 
light  and  shade,  so  that  the  whole  picture  would 
swim  in  harmony .  Titian  did  much  the  same  thing. 

Now,  I  don't  know  who  cleaned  this  picture  in 
the  Boston  Museum,  or  when  it  was  done;  but  I 
do  know  that  when  I  saw  it  after  an  absence 
of  several  years  I  received  a  tremendous  shock. 
When  the  incompetent  removed  the  varnish,  he 
took  with  it  all  the  charm  and  much  of  its  colour. 
Even  now,  a  good  deal  of  the  damage  could  be 
repaired;  but  I  am  afraid  they  will  never  allow 
any  fit  man  to  touch  it. 

I  want  to  go  on  record  here  and  now  as  saying 

that  if  any  one  at  any  future  time  uses  a  solvent 

on  one  of  my  pictures,  and  dares  to 

Let  Mr.  remove  a  glaze  without  knowing  how  to 
Restorer  .  . 

Beware      P^t  it  back,  he  will  be  committing  an 

unpardonable  violence  against  me  and 
my  wishes.  And  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  pro- 
jection of  individuality  through  the  Valley  of  the 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES  125 


Shadow,  I  shall  be  awaiting  Mr.  Restorer  on  the 
other  shore,  mighty  close  to  the  landing. 

Seriously,  there  is  no  end  of  damage  perpetrated 
at  present  on  fine  pictures  by  the  ignorant  restorer. 
A  recent  instance  is  the  stripping  of  the  Turners  and 
some  other  pictures  in  the  New  York  Public  Library. 
The  two  Rembrandts,  Dr.  Tulp  and  his  Wife,  in  the 
Boston  Museum  show  what  may  happen  to  a  Rem- 
brandt when  a  French  restorer  tampers  with  it  to 
the  worst  of  his  ability  or  best  of  his  inability. 

For  some  reason,  museums  seem  to  have  a 
knack  of  doing  the  wrong  thing,  not  only  in  re- 
storations but  in  the  hanging  of  pictures. 
The  colour  of  background  in  the  hanging  ^"^^^^ 
of  paintings  has  been  a  subject  of  discus-  grounds 
sion,  to  my  knowledge,  for  at  least  eighty 
years.  Glancing  over  an  old  book  on  colour  by  one 
of  the  R.  A.'s,  published  in  the  forties,  I  foimd  one 
chapter  devoted  to  complaint  against  the  colour  of 
the  walls  of  the  National  Gallery,  which,  according 
to  the  writer,  were  an  olive  green.  I  was  interested 
because  at  the  time  I  knew  the  National  Gallery  it 
was,  like  most  galleries,  done  in  terra-cotta. 

It  is  only  a  few  years  ago  when,  all  of  a  sudden, 
the  pendulum  swung  again  and  we  took  up  the 


126         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


olive  greens,  and  fancied  we  had  done  something 
original.  In  one  of  our  museums  they  have  gone 
further  and  done  worse.  Cold,  slaty  greys  and  raw 
burlaps  have  been  used,  to  the  great  detriment, 
especially,  of  the  pictures  of  the  older  schools. 
The  only  excuse  that  one  would  imagine  could  be 
offered  in  extenuation  is  that  "it  is  different."  I 
was  asked  by  one  of  the  directors  of  that  particular 
museum  what  I  thought  of  the  walls;  and  I  told 
him  if  picture  dealers  attempted  to  show  their 
pictiu-es  on  walls  of  that  colour,  they  certainly 
would  have  to  go  out  of  business. 

Sometimes  I  think  it  would  be  an  advantage 
if  we  could  have  oin-  museums  run  by  picture 
dealers  and  our  picture  shops  run  by 
Museums  museum  directors.  The  directors  in 
Picture  charge  of  a  picture  shop  would  so  reduce 
Shops  in  charm  any  picture  in  their  possession 
that  it  would  not  be  possible  to  sell  any 
except  an  extraordinarily  fine  thing.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  dealers  in  charge  of  the  museums  would 
so  enhance  the  pictures  by  a  proper  ''showing  "  that 
we  would  feel  we  had  a  gallery  of  master-pieces. 

The  truth  is  that  no  particular  background  is  suit- 
able for  all  pictures.  One  thing  seems  sure,  however. 


RESTORATION  OF  PICTURES  127 


that  for  rich  pictures,  powerful  in  colour,  a  rich  warm 
background  of  a  dark  reddish-brown  is  the  best.  In 
these  pictures,  such  as  the  Rembrandt s  and  related 
works,  for  instance,  the  most  precious  tones  to  de- 
velop are  the  greys;  and  this  is  done  by  contrast. 

Those  of  us  who  know  Mr.  Prick's  Rembrandts 
on  the  fine  walls  of  his  home  have  felt  with  joy 
the  beautiful  greys  that  flickered  and 
trembled  through  the  golden  tones  en-  ^  ^^poiJS 
veloping  them.  The  same  pictures  at 
the  Metropolitan  during  the  time  of  the  Hudson- 
Fulton  Celebration — both  the  Reynoldses  and 
Rembrandts — were  hung  on  a  lighter  wall  of  a 
greyish  character,  making  the  pictures  seem  heavy 
and  oversensuous  in  colour.  This  unfortunate 
effect,  which  was  noticed  and  commented  on  by 
connoisseurs,  cropped  up  also  in  the  Whistler 
Exhibition  of  1910,  held  in  the  Metropolitan. 

Because  Whistler  years  ago  in  London  had  hung 

an  exhibition  of  pastels,  sketches,  and  so  forth,  on 

a  white  cheesecloth  wall,  it  seemed  to 

become  a  tradition  that  the  only  way  to  Wh/stler 

Misinter- 

hang  a  Whistler  was  on  a  v/all  covered  preted 
with  cheesecloth. 

Now  in  this  exhibition  there  was  a  predomi- 


128         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


nance  of  oil  paintings,  rather  dark  originally,  but, 
owing  to  his  methods,  considerably  darker  by  age. 
The  result  was  that,  when  these  pictures  were 
placed  in  contrast  with  the  light  wall,  they  looked 
muddy  and  heavy  in  colour,  and  as  dark  again 
as  they  really  were.  The  Bognor,  which  I  have 
carried  in  my  mind  for  years  as  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  expressions  of  Night  I  have  ever  seen  in 
paint,  was  almost  unrecognisable.  Nine-tenths 
of  the  pictures  there  on  that  occasion  if  they  had 
been  shown  on  a  deep,  rich  wall  would  have  gained 
enormously  in  light  and  colour. 

I  console  myself  by  reflecting  that  the  pendtilum 
swings.    As  the  directors  come  and  go,  I  know 

that  their  first  efforts  will  be  to  do  some- 
solation      thing  different  from  their  predecessors. 

Therefore,  sooner  or  later,  we  are  likely 
to  have  pictures  hung  and  shown  as  well,  at  least, 
as  the  dealers  would  hang  and  show  them. 


TWELFTH  TALK 


Tonality 

ANGUAGE  is  an  unsatisfactory 
means  with  which  to  describe  the 
subtlety  of  art.  Art  can  only  be 
explained  by  art  itself.  This  is 
one  of  the  unfortunate  things  of  art-criticism. 
Can  a  person  describe  the  colour  blue,  or  with 
words  tell  the  difference  between  a  major  and 
minor  chord  in  music?  We  get  on  by  enough  of  us 
agreeing  that  certain  words  shall  stand  for  certain 
things.  As  for  the  word  tonality,  it  is  only  under- 
stood by  those  who  understand  it.  Tonality,  tone, 
quality,  serious  quality,  as  applied  to  art,  have  no 
meaning  except  what  convention  gives  them. 

Reynolds,  who  was  a  Tonalist,  says  in  one  of  his 
lectures:  "A  picture  should  have  the  richness  in 
its  superiority  as  if  the  colours  had  been 
composed  of  cream  or  cheese,  and  is  Dgf^^ong 
the  reverse  of  a  hard  or  husky  or  dry 


manner." 


129 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Now  this  means  nothing.  Colour  like  cream  or 
cheese!  Nothing  could  be  more  ambiguous,  al- 
though every  one  who  has  arrived  at  a  certain 
point  knows  exactly  what  he  meant.  Tonality 
to  us  means  just  one  thing  and  but  one  thing.  If 
you  were  to  give  it  an  arbitrary  definition  you 
might  say,  harmonious  modulations  of  colour. 

The  more  complex  the  modulations,  the  finer 
the  quality  of  tone.  One  may  demonstrate  it  in 
this  way:  Take  a  piece  of  black  card- 
A  Demon-  board,  cut  a  hole  in  it  from  one  half  to 
stration  -^^^^    diameter ;  go  to  a  Rembrandt, 

a  Reynolds,  or  a  Whistler — to  a  Corot, 
an  Israel,  or  a  George  Fuller — or  to  any  other 
picture  which  has  tone;  pass  the  cardboard  over 
the  surface,  and  you  will  find  it  impossible  to 
discover  a  single  flat  tint  in  the  picture  as  seen 
through  the  hole  in  your  cardboard.  Each  part 
will  vibrate  with  modulations.  Then  go  to  a 
Cazin,  which  is  more  moderate  in  quality,  and,  if 
you  apply  the  same  test,  you  will  find  some  flat 
places;  that  is  to  say,  places  with  fewer  modula- 
tions and  some  without  any.  Then  try  a  big 
Salon  picture  of  the  premier  coup  type  without 
quality,  and  you  will  be  able  to  pass  your  card 


TONALITY 


131 


over  large  areas  which  are  uniform  in  colour. 
Do  you  get  the  idea? 

This  principle,  which  has  been  so  long  known,  is 
the  basis  of  the  artistic  value  in  Oriental  single- 
colour  porcelains.  Take  any  piece  in  your 

hand  and  look  at  it  closely.    At  a  little  '^^^ 

Principle  of 

distance,  it  probably  looked  like  a  white  vibration 
or  a  green  or  a  blue  or  some  other  colour ; 
but  as  you  examine  it  carefully  nearby  you  find  the 
colour  is  full  of  intermixed  tones  which  give  its 
vibrating  effect.  This  charm  is  generally  ac- 
cepted, perhaps,  for  the  reason  that  it  increases 
the  physical  pleasure  of  the  eye  which  is  readily 
transmuted  into  a  mental  one. 

If  we  illustrate  this  principle  by  music  instead  of 
paint,  we  get  something  in  this  order :  first,  comes 
the  motif — the  tune — which  can  be 
whistled;  then  the  composer  builds  ^^^y^;jj[u*s^^ 
harmonies  around  this — amplifies  it, 
plays  it  on  a  piano,  and  we  call  it  a  monotone. 
Then,  if  this  harmonised  tune  is  skilfully  handled 
in  tone-colour  and  orchestrated  (and  musicians  are 
as  badly  off  as  artists  for  the  lack  of  words  to  express 
their  meaning)  it  becomes  symphonic.  That  is  to 
say,  the  original  tune  enriched  with  harmony  is  so 


132         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


shifted  from  instrument  to  instrument,  from  strings 
to  reeds,  from  wood  to  brass,  that  our  delight  con- 
tinues intensified,  and  the  aural  nerves  are  not 
allowed  to  become  obtunded  by  the  monotonous 
repetition  of  vibrations  of  the  same  tone-colour. 

There  is  something  similar  to  this  in  pictures: 
first  the  design,  which  is  the  motif.  It  is  only  an 
unshaded  drawing.  Put  in  the  light 
Pafnt^g*^  and  shade.  It  has  now  gone  a  step 
ahead,  and  is  a  monochrome.  Then 
add  colour  (and  great  success  in  this  last  step  is  as 
difficult  for  painters  as  its  analogue  is  for  com- 
posers), and  it  has  become  a  symphony,  a  master- 
piece, perhaps.  The  optic  nerve  has  been  played 
on  in  a  manner  similar  to  the  aural,  in  which 
process,  line,  light,  shade,  and  colour  took  the  place 
of  sound- vibrations.  You  get  the  mental  effect 
through  the  increased  pleasurable  stimulation  of 
the  nerves. 

You  will  perceive  there  are  degrees  of  success 

in  tonality  as  there  are  in  orchestral  tone-colour. 

The  technical  part  of  art  is  bound  up  in 

Degrees  of  light,  shade,  and  colour;  and  these 

Tonality  >    &  > 

are  the  tools  to  work  with,  just  as  the 

plane  and  saw  are  tools  of  the  carpenter.    What  is 


TONALITY 


133 


done  with  these  three  factors  is  the  important 
thing,  and  where  art  begins.  One  man  may 
receive  impressions  so  personal,  so  full  of  beauty, 
that  a  presentment  of  them  would  be  an  addition 
to  the  art- wealth  of  the  world ;  and  yet  he  may  be 
so  deficient  in  the  mastery  of  the  mechanical  part 
of  transcribing  his  impressions  as  to  mar  seriously 
their  value.  Another  may  have  perfect  command 
of  these  materials,  and  yet  feel  and  see  little  worth 
recording.  Again,  a  man  may  be  lacking  in  one 
point,  but  so  powerful  in  another  that  we  take 
him  for  the  good  that  is  in  him,  and  forgive  him 
his  deficiencies. 

Frans  Hals,  in  his  late  work,  is  pardoned  his 
lack  of  the  fine  colour  of  his  earlier  work,  for  cer- 
tain other  wonderful  qualities.  William 

Blake  was  so  powerful  in  line  and  so  Compensa- 
^  tive 
noble  in  conception  as  to  secure  a  per-  Qualities 

manent  place  in  art.  Calame  made  a 
reputation  that  rests  entirely  on  his  lithographs. 
His  pictures  are  forgotten.  Monticelli  is  forgiven 
all  his  lapses  for  the  sake  of  his  wonderful  colour. 
But  these  reputations,  great  as  they  are,  lag  be- 
hind those  of  the  men  who  obtained  the  supreme 
harmony  of  hand  and  head  necessary  for  the 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


greatest  achievement;  and  there  are  but  few  of 
these  in  a  century. 

I  am  saying  a  great  deal  about  the  technic  of 
art;  for,  after  all,  the  expression  of  the  finest 


most  difficult  of  these  factors  to  master  is  colour. 
It  is  in  this  that  the  most  failures  occur  among 
painters. 

Scan  through  any  illustrated  catalogue  of  paint- 
ings, and  you  will  find  many  reproductions  that 
are  charming,  while  the  originals  are  utterly 
uninteresting.  The  failure  occurs  at  the  last 
step. 

Colour  seems  to  be  the  sixth  sense;  and  when  it 
is  developed, — when  it  is  pushed  to  the  limit  in  the 
hands  of  a  master, — when  it  is  broken  and  modu- 
lated till  it  fairly  pulsates;  when  the  painter 
achieves  this  result,  then  we  say,  the  picture  has 
quality — has  tone.  And  we  measure  its  degree 
of  success  by  what  has  been  done  before  in  its 
prototype. 

I  have  often  heard  the  remark  that  the  beauty 
of  coloiu*  in  the  old  pictures  is  the  effect  of  age. 


Difficulties 
of  Colour 


thoughts  of  the  greatest  artists  is  de- 
pendent on  these  mechanical  means; 
and  it  seems  as  though  the  rarest  and 


TONALITY 


135 


But  the  old  pictures  do  not  get  their  tone  from 
age.  It  was  there  at  first.  Time  has  only  mel- 
lowed and  ripened  what  already  existed. 
If  this  is  not  true,  why  is  the  great  ^^xone 
majority  of  the  pictures  painted  at  the 
same  time  worthless  in  colour,  while  only  a 
small  percentage  of  the  art  of  any  time  con- 
tains all  the  masterpieces  and  even  all  the  good 
second-raters? 

There  have  always  been  a  few  good  painters 
working  somewhere  in  the  world  whose  pictures 
eventually  drift  into  this  exclusive  segrega- 
tion. If  one  makes  the  selection  with  love 
and  understanding,  he  can  hang  ^'old"  and 
"modem,"  "low-key"  and  "high-key"  side  by 
side  with  the  resultant  harmony  that  will  sing  to 
heaven. 

Of  course,  the  real  value  of  any  work  of 
art  is  in  the  thought.  A  noble  conception 
lamely  expressed  is  worth  a  wilderness  of  ex- 
amples of  watch-making  art.  This,  however, 
is  only  a  personal  contention.  There  are 
plenty  of  others  to  take  the  other  side.  It  is 
still  the  old  argument:  the  poetic  against  the 
academic. 


136         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


One  of  the  popular  fallacies  that  continually 
crops  up  is  that  there  were  certain 
Periods  golden  periods  of  art  in  which  everybody 
painted  masterpieces. 

Starting  with  the  Venetians,  one  finds  a  period 
which  lasted  a  little  more  than  a  hundred 
years,  and  which  contained  very  few  men  whose 
names  have  survived.  Before  that  period  had 
come  to  an  end,  Spain  and  Holland  had  begun 
producing  masterpieces;  and  I  think  twenty  or 
twenty-five  names  will  include  the  masters  of 
these  two  schools,  great  and  small,  who  achieved 
immortality. 

Before  the  Dutch  school  had  finished,  the 
first  French  school,  headed  by  Watteau  and 
Boucher,  was  turning  out  charming  master- 
pieces. Meanwhile,  the  early  English  school  had 
begim  with  Richard  Wilson,  and  running  through 
the  group  of  Reynolds,  Romney,  Gainsborough, 
Morland,  Raebum,  Constable,  Bonnington,  and 
others,  finished  with  Lawrence  and  Turner, 
and  thus  brought  things  almost  into  our  own 
times. 

Everybody  knows  of  the  famous  exhibition  of 
Constables  in  Paris, — how  it  turned  over  a  group 


TONALITY 


137 


of  French  painters  who,  ready  to  rebel  against 

the  severe  academic  principles  of  David,  found 

their  clue,  and  turned  to  Nature  with'  a 

clarified  and  inspired  vision.    The  re-  ^f^J^g 

suit  was  the  noble  school  of  1830.    This  Constable 

became,  in  turn,  the  direct  inspiration  ^^?^p^g 

of  our  American  Tonalists;  beginning 

with  Himt  and  Fuller  and  continuing  with  Inness, 

Wyant,  and  Martin. 

The  exhibition  of  the  Barbizon  work,  made  by 

Boussod,  Valadon  &  Co.,  at  The  Hague  in  the 

seventies,  had  very  much  the  same  effect 

on  a  group  of  young  Dutch  painters.  '^^^ 

Modem 

These  young  Dutchmen  were  all  Diis-  Dutch 
seldorf-trained.  This  school,  in  spite  of 
its  faults  which  made  its  pictures  pass  out  of  con- 
sideration, insisted  upon  a  rigorous  foundation. 
The  exhibition  of  the  work  of  1830  caused  the 
scales  to  drop  from  their  eyes,  and  they  were  off 
on  the  scent  in  full  chase;  and  the  second  great 
Dutch  school  had  begun. 

Israel  was  the  oldest  man  of  the  group.  Albert 
Neuhuys  and  Mauve  were  the  youngest.  Jack 
Maris,  the  most  virile,  and  who  only  escaped 
brutality  in  paint,  as  some  say,  by  his  poetic  charm, 


138         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


tried  at  first  to  out-Meissonier  Meissonier.  I  re- 
member seeing  a  little  water-colour  of  his,  about 
the  size  of  your  hand,  in  which  several  figures  were 
represented  as  fighting  with  swords  in  a  room.  It 
was  a  most  marvellous  bit  of  detail.  Even  the 
grain  in  the  wood  of  the  table  was  painted.  I 
recall  also  Neuhuys  showing  me  a  study  he  had 
painted  in  the  Council  Chamber  at  Bruges  in 
which  the  closest  details  were  wondrously  worked 
out  in  almost  photographic  finish. 

An  early  Israel,  in  the  Dusseldorf  manner, 
occasionally  crops  up ;  though  why  any  one  should 
want  it,  who  knows  Israel  at  his  best,  passes 
imderstanding. 

I  speak  of  this  to  show  what  a  fine  and  firm 
foundation  the  work  of  these  masters  stood  on. 
After  their  conversion,  Israel's  temperament  took 
him  back  to  the  study  of  the  old  masters,  especially 
of  Rembrandt.  I  recollect  at  first  he  was  spoken 
of  as  the  Dutch  Millet;  later  he  became  better 
known  as  our  modern  Rembrandt. 

Jack  Maris  harked  back  to  Ruysdael;  and  the 
influence  of  the  big  Ruysdael  Mill  in  the  Ryks 
Museum  often  appears  in  his  later  work.  Mauve, 
for  a  time,  suggested  Troyon  slightly;  but  in  a 


TONALITY 


139 


little  while  his  own  characteristics  supplanted  any 
qualities  in  his  work  that  may  have  been  reminis- 
cent. He  died  too  young!  only  two  weeks  or  so 
after  I  had  said  good-bye  to  him  at  Laren. 

I  remember  one  thing  that  made  a  great  impres- 
sion on  me,  and  has  given  me  much  food  for 
thought  since;  it  was  relative  to  the 
importance  of  a  thorough  f oimdation  ^^^^  * 

Firm 

in  art.  Foundation 

Shortly  after  my  arrival  in  Holland,  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Frangois  Buff  a,  the 
great  expert  and  dealer,  and  close  personal  friend 
of  Israel,  the  Marises  and  Mauve.  It  was  he 
whom  Boussod  &  Valadon  asked  to  advise  them 
when  they  were  uncertain  as  to  whether  they 
should  take  up  the  work  of  the  Barbizon  men  or 
not.  He  went  to  Paris,  took  one  look,  and  said: 
"Take  all  you  can  get."  He  was  then  a  very  old 
man,  with  long  white  hair  that  hung  over  his 
shoulders;  and  he  walked  with  a  long,  ivory- 
headed  cane. 

One  day,  I  told  him  how  much  I  admired  the 
Dutch  painters;  and  he  said  to  me:  "Yes,  it  is  a 
fine  school.  It  is  our  first  school  in  over  two 
hundred  years;  but  it  is  finished."    I  did  not 


ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


understand  him,  and  asked:  "What  do  you  mean? 
You  have  Israel,  Maris  and  Mauve,  and  so  on/* 
He  replied:  "Yes,  very  true!  they  are  great 
painters !  but  the  school,  it  is  finished !  There  are 
none  coming  up  to  take  their  places.  The  young 
men  are  starting  where  the  old  men  are  leaving 
off." 

One  looks  over  the  Dutch  school  to-day,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  men  left  from  that 
golden  period,  one  is  tempted  to  believe  that  Mr. 
Buff  a  gave  voice  to  a  great  truth:  the  necessity  of  a 
firm  foundation. 


THIRTEENTH  TALIi 


Past  and  Present 


E  often  hear  the  remark  to-day  that 
the  American  artists  are  not  ap- 
preciated, or  properly  supported. 
Yet,  when  I  compare  the  sales  and 
prices  of  former  times  with  those  of  to-day,  I  feel 
that  things  are  not  so  bad  after  all.  Our  men  are 
selling  an  enormous  number  of  pictures 

at  prices  far  in  excess  of  those  received  |[*^®s®^*-^^y 
^  Appreciation 

by  the  leading  artists  during  my  first 
years  in  the  profession. 

The  fact  is,  that  art  in  every  cotmtry,  no  matter 
how  good,  never  received  full  support  in  its  own 
time;  that  came  later.  This  is  a  com- 
plaint that  might  have  been  heard,  I 
fancy,  at  any  time  and  in  any  coimtry. 
The  early  Englishmen  had  a  much  harder  time  in 
securing  recognition  than  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
the  present-day  American  artist.  Richard  Wilson 
died  unsuccessful,  as  did  George  Morland.  Rey- 

141 


The  Old 
Story 


142         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


nolds  was  never  able  to  finish  the  series  of  pictures 
he  had  planned,  such  as  The  Infant  Hercules 
Strangling  the  Serpents ^  &c.,  and  was  driven  into 
portraiture.  This  was  all  right  when  he  had  a 
keen  interest  in  the  sitter;  but  it  must  have 
been  very  irksome  when  done  from  necessity. 
Constable  twice  gave  up  painting  from  lack  of 
support. 

I  make  this  quotation  from  Northcote*s  Life  of 
Reynolds,  which  was  written  in  a  period  when 
England  was  producing  the  masterpieces  which 
are  so  highly  prized  to-day: 

A  melancholy  spectacle  has  it  offered  to  Englishmen, 
to  view  the  pining  arts  of  Britain  beset  and  trampled 
Northcote  army  of  connoisseurs  and  collectors 

of  foreign  pictures,  strengthened  by  the 
part  of  dealers  in  this  species  of  traffic,  all  arranged 
rank  and  file,  bidding  defiance  to  every  effort  of  our 
own  country,  associating  closely  among  themselves, 
and  assigning  great  names  to  the  fragments  they 
possessed,  standing  before  them  with  affected  rapture, 
and  congratulating  each  other  on  their  signal  good 
fortune  and  their  taste!  These  men  beheld,  with 
terror  and  dismay,  all  such  as  fell  under  the  suspicion 
of  real  knowledge  and  judgment  in  the  art,  apprehen- 
sive lest  a  discovery  might  be  made,  which  would 
dissolve  the  magic  charm,  in  one  moment  annihilate 


PAST  AND  PRESENT 


their  visionary  riches,  and  change  to  trumpery  their 
ideal  wealth. 

This  whole  mass  of  operation  might  have  been 
surveyed  with  the  eye  of  compassion,  as  we  see  the 
poor  lunatic  who  fancies  himself  a  king,  or  regarded  as 
a  ludicrous  scene  in  a  comedy,  but  that  it  was  not 
quite  so  innocent  in  its  effects.  It  kept  up  perpetual 
war  against  the  talent  of  all  our  living  artists,  while 
an  excess  of  adulation  was  bestowed  on  foreign  works, 
and  prices  demanded  and  given  for  them  as  if  they 
had  been  the  productions,  not  of  men,  but  angels ;  the 
possessors,  with  affected  wonder,  asking  the  reason 
why  such  works  could  not  now  he  done,  as  if  any  oppor- 
tunity had  been  afforded  of  ascertaining  by  experiment 
whether  they  could  be  done  or  not. 

I  shall  conclude  with  observing,  that  if  the  excessive 
praises,  of  which  some  men  of  this  description  were  as 
liberal,  had  been  bestowed,  with  pure  justice,  on  those 
works  alone  which  deserve,  and  ever  will  claim,  our 
respect,  it  would  have  been  grateful  to  every  lover  of 
true  genius.^ 

This  lament  certainly  shows  far  greater  lack  of 
appreciation  in  England  by  the  art-patrons  of  the 
artists  of  that  time  than  we  have  had  to  sufiFer  in 
our  day.  France,  too,  remained  blind  to  the 
splendour  of  her  great  Romantic  school.    And  it 

^  Pp.  cxxxiii.-iv.,  Memoirs  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds ,  LL.D., 
F.R.S.,  F.S.A.,  &c.  By  James  Northcote,  Esq.,  R.A.,  London, 
1813. 


144         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


has  only  been  within  the  last  few  years  that  the 
men  of  that  school  have  had  the  representation  in 
the  museums  which  they  deserved. 

When  I  first  went  to  France,  there  was  practi- 
cally nothing  of  the  Barbizon  men  in  the  Louvre. 
The  representation  now  there  is  a  recent  acquisi- 
tion. The  same  conditions  existed  in  Holland. 
Virtually  the  whole  market  of  the  Dutchmen  was 
outside  their  country.  Their  pictures  went  to 
England,  Scotland,  and  America. 

I  remember  a  visit  to  the  Dutch  collector,  Fop- 
Smit  of  Rotterdam,  who  was  known  as  the  "Dutch 
Vanderbilt. "  He  was  an  old  bachelor 
Vanderbilt  finding  some  difficulty  in  spending 

his  enormous  income,  had  taken  to  the 
formation  of  a  private  gallery.  Having  been 
served  well  by  his  dealers,  he  succeeded  in  creating 
an  important  collection  of  pictures  of  the  past 
century  in  Europe. 

I  ventured  to  ask  him  why  he  did  not  have  ex- 
amples of  Israel,  the  Marises,  and  so  on,  in  his 
collection ;  if  he  did  not  like  them.  He  answered : 
Yes,  they  paint  pretty  well,  but  not  well  enough 
to  hang  with  these  men. 

Apropos  of  this  subject,  I  stumbled  on  a  com- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  145 


plaint  in  one  of  Lord's  Essays  on  Ancient  Rome, 
in  which  the  sculptors  of  the  period,  who  are  now 
famous,  were  also  finding  fault  with  the 
lack  of  support  accorded  them,  and 

Roman 

lamenting  the  fact  that  their  collect-  Days 
ors  would  insist  on  going  to  Greece  and 
Africa  for  their  purchases  of  art.  So  it  would 
seem  that  these  complaints,  like  the  poor,  are 
always  with  us.  Sometimes  I  feel  that  there  may 
be  a  danger  in  too  much  support. 

The  conditions  that  existed  during  my  early 
years  in  New  York  were  very  different  from  those 
of  the  present  time.    Our  old  and,  we 
must  confess,  weak  schools  were  simply 

changes  in 

overwhelmed  by  the  avalanche  of  fine  New  York 
things  which  the  dealers  were  bringing 
over  from  the  other  side.  We  were  more  or  less 
regarded  as  artistic  pariahs.  The  result  was  that 
we  all  buckled  down  deep  in  the  traces,  resolved 
that  even  if  we  should  never  be  able  to  paint  any- 
thing that  would  hold  up  in  comparison  with  these 
importations,  yet  we  would  do  the  best  we  could. 
And  we  did.  The  fighting-spirit,  I  find,  is  as 
valuable  in  art  as  anywhere  else. 

I  remember  well  the  hesitating  and  timid  spirit 
10 


146         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


that  collectors  manifested  in  adding  a  Wyant  or 
an  Inness  to  their  collections.  Gradually  enough, 
they  found  the  result  satisfactory,  and  were  not 
ashamed  to  speak  of  the  fact,  or  to  induce  others 
to  go  and  do  likewise. 

So  the  reputation  of  American  art  began  slowly 
to  be  made;  and  the  men  of  to-day,  without 
perhaps  realising  it,  are,  nevertheless,  reaping  the 
reward  of  the  sincere  work  done  by  their  earlier 
compatriots.  It  is  not  altogether  a  bad  thing  for 
a  yoimg  man  to  have  his  nose  kept  a  little  on  the 
grindstone.    It  may  develop  the  best  that  is  in  him. 

One  of  my  friends  made  a  remark  to  me  the  other 
day  that  we  seem  to  be  in  the  midst  of  new  schools. 


dorf  school  was  passing  out;  and  when  the  first 
group  of  the  iconoclasts  came  from  Munich,  with 
Mr.  Chase  at  the  head.  The  Premier  Coup  school 
followed  shortly  after  from  France. 

Our  old  conservative  men  felt  that  the  end  of 
the  world  had  come  with  the  Barbizon  men,  whom 
they  declared  inchoate  and  impossible.  There  is 
a  good  old  story  which  we  never  really  believed 


Always  New 
Schools 


On  looking  back,  I  find  that  we  have 
always  been  in  the  midst  of  new  schools. 
I  came  into  the  field  just  as  the  Dussel- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  147 


that  made  the  rounds  for  years  at  that  period. 
It  related  to  a  Corot  that  hung  in  an  exhibition  at 
the  Century  Club,  and  after  three  days  it  was  dis- 
covered that  it  had  been  hung  upside  down. 

Then,  the  next  movement  I  ran  into  was  the 
Luminist,  with  its  subdivisions,  the  Pointillists 
and  Stripists,  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
Oddly  enough,  it  seems  as  though  the  "^^^ 
farther  such  new  movements  depart  Doomed 
from  the  normal,  the  more  rabid  and 
vociferous   their   followers   become.    The  first 
annoimcement  always  implies  that  it  is  what  the 
world  has  long  been  waiting  for;  and  that  the  old 
masters  are  entering  the  phase  of  eclipse. 

I  recall  going  through  the  Metropolitan  early  in 
the  nineties  with  three  or  four  of  our  ardent  con- 
verts to  Luminism.  We  looked  through  the  gal- 
leries, at  the  Rembrandts  and  Barbizons,  and, 
when  we  left  the  building,  one  of  my  companions 
held  us  "with  his  glitterin*  eye"  on  the  steps  a 
moment,  waved  his  hand  in  the  air,  and  said; 
^'Look  at  that!  Simply  scintillating  with  light!" 
Then  jerking  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder,  con- 
tinued: "All  those  old  things  in  there  have  got 
to  go." 


148         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


After  that  came  several  new  movements,  most 
of  which  proved  abortive.  Perhaps  the  Symbol- 
ists of  ten  years  ago  attracted  the  most  attention ; 
for  they  had  several  clever  men  among  them. 

The  old  masters,  whom  my  friend  had  con- 
demned to  obscurity,  are  still  in  evidence.  I 
believe  now,  and  I  think  I  know,  that  the  old 
master  survives — even  more,  gains  in  appreciation 
from  generation  to  generation,  because  it  should 
be  so.  It  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  They  are 
the  measuring-sticks  with  which  we  must  gauge 
all  related  and  succeeding  things.  This  survival 
of  the  harmony  we  find  in  them  forces  us  to  think 
that  there  must  be  a  fimdamental  law  obeyed  in 
the  survival. 

The  living  quality  of  a  picture  cannot  depend, 
and  should  not  depend,  on  what  you  think  of  it, 
or  I  think  of  it,  or  any  other  person 
thinks  of  it.    There  must  be  a  basic 

Pictures 

Survive  quality  which  makes  the  same  appeal 
to  the  finer  minds  of  all  time. 
Art,  and  the  appreciation  of  art,  must  of  neces- 
sity be  very  old.  They  began  thousands  of  years 
before  we  had  any  history.  The  poetic  art  of  the 
Greeks  and  their  art  of  sculpture  are  still  models  of 


PAST  AND  PRESENT 


inspiration.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Greeks  were 
equally  good  in  the  art  of  painting.  This  I  have 
referred  to  in  a  talk  devoted  to  technical  problems. 
But,  thousands  of  years  before  the  Greeks,  there 
were  drawings  by  the  Cave  Dwellers  which  com- 
pare favourably  in  many  ways  with  what  we  are 
doing  to-day.  The  sketch  of  Hunting  a  Mammoth, 
in  which  the  hunters  are  driving  their  spears  into 
the  sides  of  old  Curly  Horn,  is  good  enough  to  be 
in  the  note-book  of  almost  any  artist  of  the  present 
day. 

One  thing  clearly  evident  and  obvious  is  that 

all  the  art  which  survives  contains  some  quality 

showing  that  the  subject  was  seen  with 

the  normal  eye.    Of  course,  it  is  possible  '^^^ 

Normal 

to  practise  almost  any  distortion.  We  Eye 
have  seen  landscapes  with  green  skies  and 
blue  grass ;  we  have  seen  all  sorts  of  vagaries  in  form 
and  colour ;  but  to  us,  with  or  without  art-education, 
the  work  that  remains  on  top  through  himdreds  of 
years,  and  survives  untouched  by  all  passing  fads, 
is  always  perfectly  sane.  It  is  the  work  of  a 
healthy  mind  in  a  healthy  body. 

It  is  also  often  true  that  work  which,  for  want  of 
a  better  word,  we  call  neurotic  is  very  beautiful, 


150         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


and  well  worth  doing;  but  after  all,  in  spite  of  its 
charm,  the  appeal  seems  to  be  narrower,  feebler, 
and  less  convincing  than  that  of  the  more  vital 
things. 

Strange  to  say,  I  have  never  known  a  practiser 

or  follower  of  what  we  may  call  the  more  robust 

expression  who  did  not  like  and  occa- 

The  "  Rude  sionally  enjoy  some  of  these  ephemeral 
and 

Boisterous "  f t^sies.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have 
never  met  a  professed  follower  of  freak- 
ish art  who  had  any  liking  for  the  normal.  I  re- 
member one  collector  of  this  type  who  disposed  of 
a  fine  Inness  because  he  found  it,  as  he  said,  "rude 
and  boisterous. " 

The  truth  is,  there  are  certain  folk  who  always 
want  something  new.  They  break  out  regularly 
in  new  medicinal,  religious,  and  artistical  doctrines. 
From  the  amount  of  noise  they  make  when  the 
fever  is  at  its  height,  one  would  fancy  they  had  the 
world  by  the  tail.  But,  right  in  the  midst  of  it  all, 
along  comes  a  sale  of  old  masters.  And  you  find 
they  are  bringing  more  than  ever. 


FOURTEENTH  TALK 


Some  Questions  and  Answers 


OW  would  you  define  Art?   Is  it 
amenable  to  definition? 


Tolstoy's  definition  is  perhaps  as 
good  as  any.    That  is  to  say,  the 


power  to  pass  on  to  others  an  emotion. 

What  constitutes  an  artist  of  the  first  rank? 

A  first-rank  artist  is  one  only  by  comparison. 
Every  man  has  got  to  be  judged  by  the  best 
previous  performance  in  his  line.  "First-rank" 
is  a  purely  relative  term.  For  example:  If  we 
were  speaking  of  a  trotting  horse  instead  of  an 
artist,  fifty  years  ago  we  would  have  said  that 
a  two-forty  horse  was  a  first-class  trotter.  But 
to-day  a  two-forty  horse  is  far  from  first-class. 
The  comparison  is  based  on  previous  records. 
When  we  estimate  relative  ranks  analytically,  the 
method  is  basically  the  same. 

Of  course,  critically  speaking,  each  man  is 
judged,  first,  on  how  he  sees  and  feels  his  motif. 


152         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


For  every  man  who  has  what  we  call  originality 
will  see  things  from  a  different  angle,  with  a  differ- 
ent note  of  understanding,  than  his  predecessor  or 
even  his  contemporary.  It  is  the  personal  note 
which  every  man  of  genius  has — that  he  is  bom 
with — which  cannot  be  taken  away  if  it  is  suf- 
ficient to  be  valuable. 

The  other  point  of  consideration  is  the  technical 
excellence  with  which  he  has  expressed  his  thought ; 
and  this  must  be  compared  with  what  has  pre- 
viously been  done.  This  point  is  of  more  impor- 
tance than  many  artists  of  to-day  consider  it. 
For,  when  we  study  the  pictures  that  have  lived 
and  held  respect,  we  find  among  them,  true  in  a 
minor  sense,  pictures  which  express  no  thought  or 
emotion,  and  which  only  live  because  of  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  craftsmanship  shown  in  the  work. 

Among  the  examples  of  this  sort  may  be  men- 
tioned the  old  Dutch  "still  lifes"  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  the  Vollons  of  the  present  epoch. 
This  brings  to  mind  a  lot  of  fuss  and  feathers  about 
temperament.  Why  all  this  shrieking  about  tem- 
perament, which  is  not  a  rare  thing?  Most  of  us 
have  it,  producers  and  non-producers,  in  varying 
degrees.    The  present  cult  magnifies  it  out  of  all 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  153 


proportion  to  that  which  is  on  the  other  side  of  the 
shield;  that  is,  the  abihty  to  express  it  so  as  to 
pass  it  on  to  others.  A  temperamental  painter 
who  cannot  paint  is  as  foolish  an  object  as  would 
be  a  voiceless  singer — it  is  like  a  nail  without  a 
hammer. 

Part  of  this  laxity  of  standard  is  probably  due 
to  the  lack  of  knowing-criticism.  For  the  critic 
who  would  consider  wisely  must  know  preceding 
schools  and  men  in  order  to  make  just  estimates  of 
modem  work,  and  intelligent  comparisons  with 
that  of  the  past.  The  acquirement  of  this  critical 
foundation  will  take  years  of  travel,  and  intelli- 
gent research  in  museums  and  private  collections. 
Besides  this,  a  fair  working-knowledge  of  the  dif- 
ferent technics  is  indispensable. 

Now  all  this,  coupled  with  a  sympathetic  mind 
and  gift  of  expression,  might  produce  a  real  sort 
of  criticism  worthy  the  name.  As  it  is,  careless, 
half-equipped  writers  are  apt  to  be  seduced  by  the 
novel  and  bizarre,  until  a  conservative  like  myself, 
who  knows  the  pictures  and  reads  the  critiques^ 
feels  sometimes  that  such  rubbish  is  partly  re- 
sponsible when  our  profession  goes  "a- whoring 
after  false  gods." 


154         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


Where  do  you  place  painting  among  the  fine  arts; 
and  what  do  you  consider  its  relative  importance? 

That  is  a  futile  question.  A  painter  would  say- 
painting  is  first ;  a  sculptor  would  say  the  same  of 
sculpture;  a  musician  or  poet  the  same  of  his  art. 
It  is  as  foolish  to  try  to  discriminate  in  this  par- 
ticular as  were  the  discussions  which  occasionally 
raged  during  my  student  years.  For  example: 
*'Who  is  the  greatest  painter?"  Personally,  I 
could  never  find  any  sense  in  these  debates;  for 
I  so  loved  them  all,  that  if  one  was  preferred,  I 
invariably  foimd  myself  defending  the  claims  of 
the  others. 

As  to  painting,  they  can  place  it  where  they 
please,  even  in  the  lowest  rank.  And  at  times 
I  feel  that  one  of  the  fine  things  of  painting  is  that 
one  must  be  both  a  craftsman  and  more  or  less  of 
a  poet.  For  craftsmanship — the  mechanical  side 
of  art — is  a  good  steadier  to  the  mind.  You  see, 
if  one  loves  his  work  he  will  find  so  much  happiness 
in  the  doing  of  it  that  he  will  have  no  need  and 
less  time  to  worry  about  its  relative  importance. 

An  art  without  ideals  is  like  a  wingless  bird. 
That  sounds  very  well.  Now  what  are  these  ideals, 
especially  with  reference  to  painting? 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  155 


The  ideal  of  a  painter  is  probably  beauty;  and 
here  is  a  case  where  a  word  means  very  little  that 
is  definite,  since  beauty  is  one  thing  to  one  man 
and  a  totally  different  thing  to  another.  Yet  in 
reviewing  the  work  that  lives  one  feels  that  many 
of  these  subjects  which  are  ugly  in  a  way  were 
painted  to  show  the  beauties  that  exist  in  most 
prosaic  things,  and  only  need  translation  by  an 
artist.  An  example  is  the  Butcher  Shop  painted 
by  Rembrandt.  In  looking  at  that  picture  one 
feels  nothing  of  blood  and  death;  but  is  charmed 
by  the  beauty  of  colour  and  the  general  exquisite- 
ness  of  the  painting.  I  can  see  now  the  wonderful 
reds  and  golden  greys  in  the  leg  of  beef,  hanging 
on  the  hook  in  the  butcher's  stall.  The  effect 
helps  us  to  realise  that  we  are  surroimded  by  beauty 
if  we  can  but  distinguish  it.  In  this  instance  we 
see  clearly  that  it  was  not  an  attempt  to  accent 
ugliness. 

Perhaps  art,  after  all,  might  best  be  described 
as  an  eternal  quest  for  the  beautiful.  Art  is  a 
poetic  truth  instead  of  a  scientific  or  historic  one. 
It  has  its  functions,  and  its  purpose,  distinct  from 
the  other  things  of  life.  A  sewage  system  of  a 
great  city  is  the  wonderful  result  of  a  scientific 


156         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


problem;  but  usually,  one  would  prefer  canoeing 
on  a  fine  stream  or  lake  rather  than  floating  down 
a  sewer-pipe,  as  the  curious  do  in  Paris. 

I  know  you  have  positive  opinions  on  the  subject 
of  art-criticism.  What  do  you  think  of  the  nomen- 
clature of  the  average  art-critic? 

Too  much  of  it  has  little  meaning  other  than 
that  accorded  by  the  fleeting  convention  of  the 
day.  If  one  would  compare  an  art-criticism  of 
to-day  with  that  of  thirty  years  ago,  one  would  be 
surprised  to  see  how  the  nomenclature  has  changed. 
The  Tonal  pictures  which  were  "heavy'*  or  "rich 
in  colour"  or  "tmctuous, "  became  "fat,*'  a  little 
later  "gummy,"  and  at  present  are  called  "old 
hat."  None  of  these  words  have  any  real  sig- 
nificance apart  from  that  given  by  fashion.  In 
the  same  way,  the  "chiaroscuro"  of  Reynolds's 
time  later  became  "light  and  shade  relations," 
and  is  now  usually  referred  to  as  "black  and  white  " 
values. 

Art-criticism  should  be  kept  as  free  as  possible 
from  art  jargon  and  technical  terms.  There  is 
very  little  to  be  said  that  cannot  be  expressed  in 
simple,  honest,  everyday-English.  As  for  the  rest, 
that  can  only  be  said  by  the  picture  itself. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSIVERS  157 


Theoretically,  art  is  something  in  life  seen 
through  a  glorified  vision.  It  is  not  an  exact 
reproduction  of  the  thing  seen;  for  that  would  be 
photography.  The  true  expression  is  a  personal 
equation  placed  somewhere  between  academic 
rendition  of  photographic  accuracy,  and  a  vague 
suggestion  of  what  is  represented.  Both  extremes 
are  unsatisfactory.  One  repels  by  its  literal 
stupidity;  and  the  other,  carried  too  far,  says 
nothing  from  its  incoherence. 

The  last  swing  of  the  pendulum  in  this  direction, 
as  shown  by  some  of  our  recent  vagaries  in  paint, 
indicates  that  it  would  be  better  to  eliminate  paint 
entirely  and  to  write  in  the  objects,  thus  giving 
the  imagination  full  liberty  to  construct  the  picture 
to  suit  itself.    For  example: 


Cloud 

Hill  Tree 
Cow 

Cow 

Pond 
Flowery  Meadow 


This  might  be  the  extreme  limit  of  suggestion. 
But  here  we  lose  another  pleasure;  that  of  fine 


158         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


craftsmanship.  It  is  a  secondary  pleasure,  to  be 
sure;  but  what  magnificent  craftsmen  the  old 
masters  were!  What  a  delight  in  the  unctuous 
textures  and  surfaces  of  Rembrandts  and  Velas- 
quezes!  Are  there  any  pictures  in  existence  that 
are  really  considered  great  in  which  the  workman- 
ship is  not  superb? 

What  then  would  you  call  a  picture? 

You  must  remember,  a  picture  is  a  picture;  it  is 
called  a  picture  because  it  depicts  something.  We 
have  colour  and  line  and  light  and  shade  to  handle; 
and  our  problem  is  to  express  something  that  may 
be  anything  from  a  literal  copy  of  Nature  to  the 
vague  rendition  of  a  sensation  suggested  by  and 
related  to  what  we  are  seeing. 

There  are  also  interesting  experiments  made  in 
which  paint  is  used  for  other  reasons.  One  occa- 
sionally sees  a  picture  in  which  the  object  of  the 
artist  might  be  better  expressed  in  other  ways. 

The  Genre  school  of  painting,  so  popular  a  few 
years  ago,  came  to  an  end  because  it  was  realised 
that  story-telling  was  not  the  fimction  of  a  picture. 
In  fact  the  only  excuse  for  a  painting  is  that  it 
is  the  best  form  of  expression  for  the  particular 
subject  in  hand. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  159 


In  the  same  way,  writers  are  tempted  occasion- 
ally to  stray  onto  the  painters*  preserves.  Now 
and  then  I  encounter  an  elaborate  description  of 
a  sunset,  or  some  other  colourful  phase  of  nature, 
that  makes  me  sorry  it  was  written.  Just  sunset 
woiild  be  much  more  satisfactory;  it  would  stimu- 
late the  imagination  better  than  this  piling  of 
words  on  words. 

Likewise  the  musician,  in  what  is  called  de- 
scriptive or  programme  music,  may  be  accused  of 
the  same  error. 

How  far  should  imitation  proceed  in  a  picture? 

Imitation  is  really  the  basis  on  which  all  art 
rests.  Its  importance,  as  the  beginning  of  an 
artistes  training,  was  referred  to  by  nearly  all  the 
old  writers.  But,  if  imitation  is  carried  too  far, 
so  that  the  beholder  becomes  conscious  of  its 
attempt,  then  its  effect  sinks  to  a  commonplace 
level,  and  at  once  becomes  tiresome,  the  logical 
sequence  of  which  is  the  photograph. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  picture  without  sufficient 
imitation  is  unconvincing;  it  leaves  the  beholder 
uneasy  and  dissatisfied.  The  true  relation  be- 
tween imitation  and  suggestion  is  one  that  varies 
betwixt  these  extremes,  according  to  temperament 


i6o         ART-TALKS  fVITH  RANGER 


— some  great  artists  having  made  a  success  with 
more  or  less  than  others.  The  explanation  may 
concatenate  somewhat  in  this  way :  An  artist  tries 
certain  imitative  pegs  in  his  picture  and  suggests 
the  connection,  leaving  the  mind  of  the  sympa- 
thetic beholder  to  fill  in  the  gaps  as  his  taste  and 
imagination  dictate.  And  the  way  this  is  done 
will  vary  with  the  capacity  and  mood  of  the  person. 
The  pleasure  one  receives  from  personally  filling 
in  the  gaps,  as  suggested  by  the  painter,  amounts  to 
a  personal  entering  into  the  creative  work  of  the 
picture.  This  pleasure  is  denied  the  beholder 
where  the  spaces  between  these  imitative  pegs  are 
so  filled  up  by  more  imitation  that  it  becomes  a 
positive  statement  which  can  only  be  read  one 
way. 

This  academic  perfection  makes  its  appeal  to 
those  minds  which  are  unable  to  enjoy  suggestion ; 
and  the  greater  number  of  people  prefer  what  they 
term  the  soHd  understandability  of  prose  to  the 
vagueness  of  poetry. 

Personally,  I  rather  prefer  the  art  that  is  a 
shade  too  far  in  the  suggestive  direction  over  the 
art  that  approaches  too  closely  the  pole  of  aca- 
demic accuracy.    Yet,  my  respect  goes  to  the  work- 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSfVERS  i6i 


man  who  has  done  a  good  job.  A  fine  piece  of 
craft  is  a  thing  so  rare  that  we  are  bound  to  admire 
it  a  little. 

The  marvellous  artistic  tact  shown  in  the  work 
of  the  great  masters  always  leads  to  the  realm  of 
sanity;  and  their  pictures  are  always  understand- 
able, to  a  degree  at  least,  by  any  normal  eye, 
educated  or  uneducated  in  art. 

Will  you  be  a  little  more  explicit  in  regard  to 
textures? 

In  previous  discussions  of  primitive  and  pre- 
Raphaelite  methods,  you  will  remember  I  said 
that  all  pictures  up  to  Titian's  time  were  trans- 
parent washes  on  a  "flat"  ground.  The  only 
places  where  we  find  colour  used  solidly,  in  impasto, 
are  those  intended  to  bring  out  small  lights  that 
were  impossible  to  leave  in  the  wash-method. 
One  notices  that  representations  of  strings  of 
pearls  and  traceries  of  lace  stand  out  in  high  relief 
on  the  surface  of  many  of  these  earlier  pictures, 
just  as  solid  lights  of  Chinese-white  do  in  a  water- 
colour  drawing. 

From  the  time  of  Titian,  and  succeeding  artists, 
following  the  method  suggested  by  him,  the  cus- 
tom among  the  best  men  was  to  leave  brush-marks 
II 


i62         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


in  their  thicker  pigments.  These  brush-marks 
made  textures  which  could  be  varied  and  con- 
trolled; so  that  it  became  possible  to  differentiate 
by  the  surfaces  between  the  textures  of  flesh  and 
hair,  as  well  as  between  those  of  the  draperies, 
backgrounds,  and  other  objects  that  entered  into 
the  make-up  of  the  picture.  This  method  also 
gave  closer  imitations  of  objects  by  adding  to 
light  and  shade,  drawing  and  colour,  the  brush- 
marks  which  best  suggest  the  textures  of  the 
objects  depicted. 

This  constitutes  a  minor  but  distinct  gain  in 
pictorial  expression,  and  has  been  used,  with 
varying  degrees  of  success,  by  practically  all 
painters  since  Titian's  time.  The  gain  perhaps 
has  been  the  means  of  bringing  a  fuller  feeling  of 
life  into  pictures,  and  of  losing  a  remoteness  one 
feels,  especially,  toward  portraits  done  in  the 
earlier  manner. 

Yet  the  primitive  style,  with  its  precise  and 
ascetic  methods,  was  I  think  better  adapted  to  the 
expression  of  religious  subjects  than  the  succeed- 
ing, closer-to-life,  and  more  sensuous  methods. 

If  you  compare  the  earlier  expressions  of  Saints 
and  other  religious  subjects  with  the  Church 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  163 


pictures  of  the  later  men,  you  cannot  help  feeling 
in  the  former  a  reserve,  an  anaemic  spirituality,  a 
far-off  detachment  from  full-blooded,  living  hu- 
manity; their  very  technic  suggests  a  life  of 
prayer,  vigils,  and  fasting.  And  contrarily  in  the 
latter — the  Church  pictures  of  the  later  men  such 
as  Rubens,  Titian,  and  Van  Dyck,  for  instance — 
Saints  and  Angels  are  represented  as  close  of  kin 
to  flesh  and  blood,  and  suggest  a  nearness  to  our 
carnal  selves. 

What  relation  does  religion  hear  to  art?  When 
was  religion  divorced  from  art?  why,  and  what  took 
its  place? 

Don't  ask  me  such  questions!  I  prefer  to  stick 
to  what  I  know  something  about. 

You  seem  to  admire  Reynolds  very  much.  What 
do  you  think  of  him  as  a  teacher? 

That  reminds  me  of  my  introduction  to  his 
wonderful  Lectures  early  in  my  young  life  when  I 
knew  more  about  art,  and  was  more  certain  of 
what  I  knew,  than  I  have  ever  known  or  been 
since. 

I  remember  how  superior  and  advanced  our 
modem  position  seemed;  how  much  we  had  dis- 
covered and  added  to  the  art  of  painting.    I  felt 


i64         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


that  if  Sir  Joshua  had  postponed  his  Lectures 
and  Essays  until  he  could  have  had  the  benefit  of 
our  advice  and  society,  he  would  have  looked  at 
things  from  a  very  different  point-of-view.  And  I 
remember,  some  ten  or  fifteen  years  later,  dipping 
into  his  book  again,  this  time  with  amazement  and 
deHght. 

Since  then  I  have  read  him  over  and  over  with 
ever-increasing  admiration ;  and  the  memory  of  my 
original  incapacity  for  understanding  him  has 
made  me  very  lenient  with  the  cocksureness  of 
the  average  young  painter. 

The  fact  is,  I  suspect,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to 
receive  truths  with  understanding,  until  we  are 
qualified  by  experience  to  do  so.  An  innovation — 
a  new,  amusing  triviality — a  bit  of  clever  ephem- 
erality  —  is  much  more  seductive  to  us  in  our 
innocent  years  than  the  results  got  in  the  old,  slow 
way.    Also,  it  is  easier. 

How  would  you  differentiate  between  the  synthetic 
artist  J  and  the  artistically  analytical  producer? 

I  fancy  the  difference  between  the  picture 
painted  from  the  poetic  point  of  view,  which  many 
call  the  synthetic,  and  other  renderings  of  the 
same  subject  from  the  varying  ways  of  seeing. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  165 


consists  in  giving,  besides  a  rendering  of  the  sub- 
ject involved,  a  suggestion  of  similar  charm,  which 
characterises  all  similar  subjects.  Thus  the  syn- 
thetic "  gives  a  family  as  well  as  a  personal  likeness. 

The  Mills  of  Hobbema,  or  Constable,  suggest, 
first,  the  beauty  of  all  mills,  and  recall  with  pleasiire 
to  the  mind  of  the  beholder  memories  of  mills  seen 
in  his  experience.  This  is  coupled  with  the  feeling 
that  the  next  mill  he  sees  will  be  looked  at  with 
greater  pleasure.  Contrast  this  with  the  sensa- 
tion such  as  I  received  from  a  very  clever,  recent, 
picture  of  a  mill  by  a  good  modern  who  saw  it  from 
a  realistic  standpoint!  I  felt  how  lovely  that 
particular  place  must  be,  and  that  it  would  be 
worth  a  journey  to  go  to  that  exact  place  purposely 
to  enjoy  it.  The  insistence  on  local  truths  had 
made  the  picture  so  local  that  no  general  applica- 
tion of  its  charm  was  possible.  This  illustration 
could  be  applied  widely  in  analogous  cases. 

Your  liking  for  the  old  methods  seems  to  include 
a  kind  of  longing  for  the  old  customs^  such  as  those 
of  master  and  'prentice,  does  it  not? 

Yes,  as  I  have  said  before,  I  have  always  liked 
the  old  idea  of  a  boy  who  wanted  to  enter  the  art- 
life  being  apprenticed  to  the  master — wearing  the 


i66         ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


smock  of  the  apprentice,  grinding  the  colours,  and 
washing  the  brushes — learning  his  craft  step  by 
step — having  the  chance  of  personal  contact — 
hearing  the  illuminating  words  that  drop  from 
time  to  time  from  the  lips  of  the  learned — and 
breathing  the  air  in  which  great  things  are  created. 

What  chance  has  the  student  in  our  present-day 
schools  compared  with  this?  How  I  should  have 
loved  to  have  been  an  apprentice  of  Constable! 
Some  argue  that  this  old-time  method  of  making 
an  artist  saps  originality.  But  I  feel  there  is  no 
such  danger.  As  I  have  said  before,  if  the  student 
has  it  in  him,  it  is  bound  to  come  out,  and  he  will 
have  the  priceless  benefit  of  a  sure  foundation. 


FIFTEENTH  TALK 


Questions  and  Answers — Continued 

LL  me  something  more  about  land- 
scape painting.  What  impels  you 
to  the  choice  of  a  subject;  how  do  you 
go  about  it;  what  makes  the  picture; 
&c,? 

The  feeling  of  a  landscape-painter  for  his  work 
is  very  difficult  to  describe.  When  I  attempt  to 
talk  about  it,  as  I  seldom  do,  I  feel  somewhat,  I 
fancy,  as  Stalky  did  in  the  Kipling  story  when  the 
fat-headed  Counsellor  came  down  to  the  school  to 
present  a  flag.  I  can  only  venture  to  say  how  I 
work  personally.  Whether  that  would  be  of  any 
help  to  another  or  not,  I  cannot  say. 

A  landscape-painter  has,  in  a  way,  the  happiest 
lot  of  all  men.  When  the  spring  comes,  and  he 
finds  himself  in  the  country — when  he  smells  the 
soil  as  it  is  thrown  up  by  the  plough — when  he  sees 
the  leaves  unfolding — gets  out  in  the  open  with 
his  canvas  where  Nature  is  calling  him — where  he 

167 


i68         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


can  hear  the  things  grow  under  the  warming 
caresses  of  the  sun  and  amidst  the  low  whispers  of 
the  south  winds — he  feels  how  much  fuller  his  life 
is  than  that  of  his  friends  whom  he  has  left  strug- 
gling in  town  at  their  chains  to  make  the  money 
with  which  to  buy  his  pictures  when  he  shall  return 
to  the  city  in  autumn. 

As  to  the  picture,  one  thing  is  sure:  the  good 
landscape  does  not  consist  merely  in  an  accurate 
rendition  of  trees,  ground,  water,  sky,  or  of  any 
other  object  that  enters  into  its  make-up. 

Take  as  a  subject,  say,  one  of  our  sidehill  New 
England  pastures,  with  a  tree  on  the  right,  and  a 
fine  big  white  cloud  billowing  over  the  tree — a  little 
pool  of  water  reflecting  the  sky,  and  two  or  three 
cows  in  the  pasture,  beyond.  Now,  a  dozen 
different  men  would  see  that  at  the  same  time, 
and  get  a  dozen  different  pictures  from  it.  One 
man  may  focus  on  the  tree,  and  when  he  is  through 
he  has  a  fine  picture  of  the  tree,  with  the  rest  of  the 
landscape  incidentally  added.  Another  will  find 
his  picture  in  the  billowing  cloud,  and  its  reflection 
in  the  water;  and  the  others  will,  each  one  of  them 
in  his  own  way,  get  something  different.  The 
larger  truth  will  be  with  the  man  who  gets  the 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  169 


result  of  these  different  objects  seized  and  ex- 
pressed in  their  just  relation  to  one  another.  The 
thing  is  really  a  sentence  in  which  tree,  cloud, 
pond,  pasture,  and  cows  are  words ;  and  the  mean- 
ing is  got  by  putting  the  words  and  emphasis  into 
their  proper  relations,  and  in  such  manner,  for 
instance,  that  the  full  sentence  says:  "Behold! 
I  am  a  beautiful  spring  day.  What  a  pleasure  it 
is  to  be  alive!  Come,  let  us  loaf  and  commune 
together;  and  forgetting  care,  let  us  breathe  in 
beauty  as  we  do  the  air  I 

These  are  the  moments  in  which  landscapes 
come.  But  do  not  imagine  for  a  moment  that 
this  is  all.  Probably  before  you  could  unpack  your 
kit,  the  cloud  would  go — there  would  no  longer 
be  any  reflection  in  your  pond — your  cows  that 
gave  such  a  pastoral  touch  to  the  scene  would 
have  wandered  over  the  hill;  and  very  likely  a 
chill  wind  having  sprung  up,  your  enthusiasm 
would  dissipate.  But  if  you  had  made  a  quick 
thumb-nail  sketch  containing  reliable  data,  you 
might  be  able  later  to  get  the  sensation  into  your 
picture  that  you  had  in  your  moment  of  great 
enjoyment ;  and  so  pass  it  on  to  some  one  kindred  to 
you  who  is  prepared  to  receive  it.    This  I  con- 


I70         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


ceive  to  be  the  great  function  of  an  artist  in  land- 
scape or  other  art — this  power  to  pass  on  an 
emotion. 

To  get  back  to  the  practical,  following  my  own 
experience :  If  I  were  not  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  tree,  or  the  ground,  or  the  hillside,  or  any  of 
the  other  things  that  enter  into  the  composition, 
I  should  return  to  the  spot,  and  make  study  after 
study,  as  carefully  as  possible,  until  I  really  felt  a 
mastery  over  the  whole  subject.  Then,  when  the 
desire  to  paint  this  particular  scene  came  to  me 
again  in  full  force,  I  should  turn  to  my  pencil- 
sketch,  which  would  bring  back  to  me  the  original 
sensation.  Thus,  I  should  paint  from  the  sketch, 
and  not  refer  to  my  other  studies,  unless  to  refresh 
my  memory. 

This  has  been  my  method  all  my  life.  I  grew 
into  it  naturally,  and  without  instruction.  As  I 
have  said,  I  was  rather  ashamed  of  it  in  my  younger 
student-days  when  I  was  working  with  plein- 
airists.  I  know  now  there  was  nothing  original 
or  new  in  it.  I  fancy  the  method  is  as  old  as  art 
itself ;  and  I  got  at  it  because,  wanting  to  cross  the 
stream,  it  was  the  only  bridge  that  was  there,  and 
I  naturally  took  it. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  171 


You  have  spoken  of  imitation  and  suggestion. 
Now  how  about  a  limited  amount  of  imitative  detail; 
and  how  far  should  it  be  carried  in  a  picture? 

I  remember  somebody*s  saying:  Artists  who 
finally  become  the  painters  of  the  most  virility 
and  breadth  are  those  who  started  with  the  closest 
and  minutest  study — a  process  that  was  often 
painful  in  their  efforts  to  achieve  photographic 
detail. 

In  looking  over  the  early  work  of  all  the  great 
painters,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  observe,  it 
seems  to  me  that  there  is  authority  for  the  state- 
ment. 

Among  the  Constable  sketches,  apart  from  those 
only  intended  to  seize  the  emotional  phase  of  some 
passing  effect,  we  find  many  which  reveal  the 
closest  interest  in  details  of  even  the  smallest  ob- 
jects that  enter  into  the  landscape. 

The  study  of  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  is  a  good  ex- 
ample of  this  careful  work.  The  markings  of  the 
bark  are  developed  to  the  last  degree  of  accuracy. 

The  early  landscapes  of  Corot,  with  their  minute 
and  careful  tree-drawings,  reveal  the  sure  founda- 
tion of  accurate  knowledge  of  form  which  his  later 
work  rests  on. 


ART-TALKS  IVITH  RANGER 


We  all  know  the  painfully  accurate  and  close- 
searching  early  examples  of  Wyant  and  Inness. 
I  think  it  would  be  well  for  the  younger  artists  if 
our  museums  could  be  induced  to  supplement  the 
maturer  work  of  such  men  with  some  examples  of 
their  tight  early  method.  This  would  teach  the 
young  men  that  the  charming  landscapes  we  so 
much  admire  rest  upon  a  fotindation  of  apprentice- 
ship to  hard  labour. 

The  older  men  must  have  worked  along  the 
same  lines  and  developed  in  the  same  manner — 
beginning  with  what  we  may  call  close  imitation. 

In  the  greatest  of  the  old  masters'  work,  that 
of  Titian  or  Rembrandt  for  instance,  one  finds  in 
every  canvas  some  little  bit  of  detail  painted  with 
the  same  loving  care  which  you  so  often  find  evi- 
dence of  in  an  old  Dutch  still-life. 

Take  for  example,  the  hand  of  Titian*s  Man 
with  the  Glove:  the  seams  of  the  glove,  the  decora- 
tions on  the  handle  of  the  sword,  are  absolute  bits 
of  realism.  The  same  is  true  of  the  rendering  of 
the  shears,  &c.,  in  Rembrandt's  picture  of  the  Old 
Lady  Trimming  Her  Nails.  In  every  Corot,  you  will 
find  some  tree- trunk,  or  limb,  or  spray  of  leaves,  or 
bunch  of  rushes  drawn  with  beautiful  accuracy. 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  173 


Looking  at  Mr.  Morgan's  Constable,  the  other 
day,  I  was  interested  to  see  how  the  master  had 
drawn  from  his  observation  of  minute  things. 
The  two  beams  that  make  the  lock-approach  in 
the  foreground  were  strapped  together  with  a 
band  of  iron  which  had  been  painted  red ;  and  the 
two  screws,  showing  even  the  groove  to  take  the 
screwdriver — all  appear.  In  the  same  picture,  the 
rope  in  the  hands  of  the  man  on  the  barge  has 
the  strands  painted  in  it. 

Of  course  these  things  are  petty  in  themselves, 
and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  picture;  but  in 
another  way,  they  are  of  the  utmost  importance. 
These  little  touches  of  realism  which  are  intro- 
duced so  artfully  that  they  are  felt  rather  than 
seen,  seem  to  have  the  effect  of  finishing  the  whole 
picture.  They  unobtrusively  suggest  the  artist's 
complete  mastery  over  the  whole  subject.  And  I 
have  frequently  noticed  that  pictures  of  the  same 
breadth  without  some  little  touch  of  realism  are 
apt  to  seem  inchoate  and  restless. 

How  old  is  the  flat  brush? 

The  flat  brush,  with  which  paint  used  to  be 
picked  up  as  with  a  palette  knife  and  laid  on  with 
a  square  touch,  was  an  invention  contemporary 


174         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


with  that  of  the  collapsible  tube.  The  work  done 
with  this  brush  was  so  popular  among  the  artists, 
and  such  a  success  with  the  public,  that  within  a 
short  time  it  became  the  only  way  to  paint.  The 
ease  with  which  the  student  acquired  the  facility 
to  do  the  trick  made  it  very  seductive;  and  in  a 
generation  after  none  were  left  who  knew  how  to 
practise  the  old  methods. 

How  did  this  affect  the  ''old  masters^*? 

Why,  the  old  masters  were  voted  "old  hats." 
I  recall  a  remark  of  a  very  clever  medallist  of  the 
Salon,  who,  when  asked  his  opinion  of  modem  art 
as  compared  with  the  old,  replied  with  a  sniff  of 
contempt:  "My  dear  sir,  the  moderns  have 
problems  to  deal  with  of  which  the  old  men  never 
dreamed." 

With  the  loss  of  the  old  methods  came  the 
difficulty  of  understanding  the  old  masters.  I 
believe  now  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for 
laymen  or  artists  to  understand  fully  the  old 
N  masters  from  the  technical  side  without  having 
practised  and  observed,  to  some  degree,  similar 
methods. 

I  have  often  been  surprised  at  painters  of  ability, 
imfamiHar  with  these  methods,  who  missed  reading 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  175 


the  technic  in  pictures  which  we  examined  together. 
Even  Carolus  Duran  who,  after  his  trip  to  Spain, 
came  back  full  of  such  vociferous  enthusiasm  for 
Velasquez  that  he  proclaimed  him  a  master  so 
sure,  so  certain,  that  wherever  he  touched  the 
canvas  it  was  complete;  and  further  declared  that 
Velasquez  never  allowed  a  second  touch  to  mar  the 
first. 

I  remember  that  Duran,  in  order  to  get  the 
swinging  brush-strokes  which  he  admired  so  much 
in  the  work  of  Velasquez,  invented  a  brush-handle. 
It  was  a  square  stick  of  wood  about  two  feet  long 
with  a  hole  in  one  end  in  which  to  insert  the  brush. 
This  enabled  him  to  stand  a  long  way  from  the 
canvas.  Now  with  this  three-foot  brush  at  the 
end  of  your  powerful  arm,  you  were  supposed  to 
get  the  simon-pure  Velasquez  freedom. 

The  truth  is,  if  any  man  ever  laboured  and 
sweated  blood  over  his  pictures,  that  man  was 
Velasquez.  His  own  portrait  by  himself  shows 
him  with  his  little  round  palette  and  round  brushes. 

I  remember  studying  in  the  Doria  Gallery  his 
picture  of  the  Pope,  which  is  more  direct  and  less 
elaborated  than  almost  any  other  Velasquez  I 
know.    It  was  painted  on  his  visit  to  Italy,  when 


176         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


he  was  probably  limited  in  his  sittings.  I  found 
that  the  line  which  marked  the  bottom  of  the 
white  overgarment  had  been  moved  up  and  down 
several  times;  and  that  there  had  also  been  con- 
siderable repainting  of  the  rest  of  the  costume. 
The  underglazes  peep  through  in  this  picture,  and 
show  that  he  had  followed  the  old  traditions  of 
glazing  the  light  parts  with  a  yellow  ochre,  while 
the  deeper  parts  were  painted  into  the  glaze  of  a 
reddish -brown,  resembling  burnt  sienna. 

These  same  foundation  glazes  I  noticed  the 
other  day  in  a  beautiful  little  Constable  owned 
by  Mr.  McFadden  of  Philadelphia.  The  pictures 
that,  to  the  uninitiated,  look  so  simply  painted, 
are  the  result  of  glazes  and  the  painting  into  them, 
and  the  repeating  of  the  process  until  success  has 
come.  The  labour  is  then  concealed  by  some 
vigorous  surface-swings  of  the  brush  which  were 
held  in  reserve  for  just  this  purpose. 

I  think  I  got  the  clue  first,  as  I  have  said,  from 
Pilkington,  an  old  art-historian  of  1800,  whose 
work  is  still  authoritative  and  readable. 

This  final  disguise,  then,  is  what  fooled  Duran, 
as  it  does  most  artists  and  laymen.  We  see  the 
finishing  touches,  but  do  not  read  the  underlying 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  177 


laborious  processes  which  really  produced  the 
spontaneity  of  tone.  We  see  the  disguise  and 
miss  the  labour. 

Does  the  criticism  that  American  art  is  too  much 
like  European  art  imply  that  one  should  not  re- 
semble the  other? 

Oh,  that  is  another  fallacy  which  crops  up  inter- 
mittently, and  finds  voice  in  the  wails  of  callow 
critics  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean.  They  ask  why 
American  art  suggests  and  is  reminiscent  of  Euro- 
pean art,  instead  of  being  itselj,  i.  e.,  purely  Ameri- 
can ,  and  without  trace  of  European  influence  ?  This 
rings  with  a  certain  plausibility;  but  if  examined, 
it  appears  grotesque.  Its  basis  seems  to  be  a  vague 
idea  that  our  ancestors  were  American  Indians. 

If  these  critics  could  only  realise  that  we  are 
a  European  people  who  came  over  here  to  better 
our  conditions,  because  we  were  crowded  out  at 
home ;  and  that  we  brought  with  us  our  ideals  and 
view-points,  which  are  the  same  as  our  cousins 
have  at  home;  that  their  history  is  our  history; 
that  their  music  and  art  are  also  ours;  that  our 
present  environment,  as  regards  climate  and 
scenery,  is  about  v/hat  we  left  behind  us; — then  I 
am  sure  they  would  not  expect  us  to  see  or  feel 


178         ART-TALKS  WITH  RANGER 


things  differently  than  we  would  have  done  if  we 
had  remained  on  the  other  side.  Even  the  farm- 
ers went  about  their  farming  over  here  about  as 
they  did  at  home. 

At  my  place  in  Connecticut,  there  is  a  strong  feel- 
ing of  the  English  south  coast  in  the  way  the  roads, 
fields,  and  fallows  have  been  tended.  In  French  Can- 
ada, one  finds  the  Latin  agricultural  touch  which  is 
unmistakable.  Naturally,  there  are  many  modifi- 
cations as  the  result  of  local  conditions  which  mark 
the  difference  between  America  and  the  old  country ; 
just  as  local  differences  tell  you  when  you  have 
passed  from  France  to  Holland  or  Germany. 

We  are,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  purely  a 
European  people,  with  our  rights  in  European 
culture  unimpaired;  and  really  much  nearer  the 
artistic  centre  of  Europe  than  a  Scotchman  was  to 
London,  or  a  German  to  Paris,  a  few  years  ago. 
If  America  had  remained  an  English  colony,  we 
should  have  escaped  the  necessity  of  explaining 
at  this  length;  and  would  have  been  accepted,  at 
least,  as  a  country  relative. 

And  what  right  has  one  to  expect  from  this 
country  an  art  that  does  not  relate  to  the  art  of 
the  past?    Personally,  I  am  delighted  to  find  our 


SOME  QUESTIONS  AND  ANSWERS  179 


art  in  a  position  where  it  is  worthy  of  being  com- 
pared to  the  great  art  of  the  past.  I  have  no 
grievance  if  it  is  compared  with  that  of  the  ''good 
men."  I  should  only  complain  if  it  were  found 
necessary  to  compare  it  with  the  mediocre. 

Has  any  one  ever  demanded  in  the  name  of 
criticism  that  there  must  be  no  relation  between 
the  art  of  France,  Holland,  and  England;  that 
each  must  show  no  sign  of  the  influence  of  the  other 
or  of  their  mother,  Italy?  Has  it  ever  been  a 
reproach  that  Holland  and  Spain  leaned  on  Italy, 
or  the  Barbizon  men  on  Constable?  Most  of  this 
folly  comes  from  the  forced  attempt  at  originality 
in  criticism,  and  which  results  not  in  originality 
but  in  queemess. 

If  it  is  discovered  that  our  landscapes  declare 
themselves  to  be  unmistakably  American;  that 
they  bring  up  instinctively  and  instantly  memories 
and  visions  of  the  localities  painted;  then,  the 
point  of  honest  and  faithful  observation  would  be 
settled.  And  if,  in  addition,  they  were  interpreted 
with  a  charm  of  technic  and  feeling  that  would 
entitle  them  to  hang  with  their  predecessors,  then 
it  would  have  to  be  admitted  that  American  paint- 
ers have  done  all  for  their  country  that  Constable 


i8o         ART-TALKS  fVITH  RANGER 


and  Cox  did  for  England,  or  the  Barbizon  men  for 
France.  Why  not  let  it  go  at  that,  and  wait 
patiently  until  some  Carlisle  graduate  has  pro- 
duced the  genuine  American  art  that  shall  take 
us  back  to  the  flint-knife  and  tomahawk ! 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  twaddle  about  origin- 
ality will  not  be  taken  seriously  by  our  young 
men ;  since  that  is  an  aim  for  which  it  is  useless  to 
try.  Those  who  have  tried  to  force  it  have  only 
succeeded  in  becoming  "queer,"  which,  by  the 
way,  is  the  easiest  game  there  is  in  art — and  one 
of  the  most  unsatisfactory.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  honestly  work  and  patiently  observe, 
and  learn  to  feel  and  express  their  feelings,  cannot 
help  being  original,  if  it  is  in  them.  They  need 
not  worry  if  "a  grey  sky  here  looks  somewhat 
like  a  grey  sky  abroad";  and  if  there  is  more  or 
less  similarity  between  our  trees  and  rocks  and 
theirs,  it  is  not  wise  to  disguise  it,  but  better  to 
paint .  them  as  they  are  seen,  even  if  the  result 
should  smack  slightly  of  European  art,  and  thereby 
disgust  some  of  the  critics. 


THE  END 


CLAP  *^ 

NOV  2  2  1950 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


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